A LONG OVERDUE UPDATE

It has been altogether far too long between posts for me. A combination of wheel swaps, sickness and travel conspired to get in the way though that doesn't quite justify the dearth of posts. Now that things seem to have been put to rights I'll endeavour to be more diligent!My last post indicated that my rear-wheel went out of true during the first ride I’d managed on the flashpoints. In fact it turned out to be a broken rim. The carbon had cracked around one of the spokes and was beyond repair. The good folks at Zipp promptly shipped me a replacement and I’d experienced nothing untoward since then. It’s not always a case of just how good a product is but also how good the company is when something goes wrong. I received my new wheel within 2 days of notifying Zipp of the failure.
Since then I’ve managed to get some riding time on the wheel in various conditions. I raced a couple of crits on the wheels during the Parkside series in Kenosha, WI and have managed to get a few hundred miles in lately for training. The gap between the early March crits and now has been attributable to getting sick, having some really lousy weather and having to take an unplanned trip back to the UK. The wheels are probably not the best crit wheels. They aren’t the lightest and don’t accelerate as quickly as some others, but this should be tempered by the fact that unless you are racing Cat 2 or above the wheels aren’t going to hold you back! Conversely, some of the longer training rides I have done recently have given the wheels more of a chance to show their stuff. These rides have invariably turned into mini-races. The wheels still have that solid feel to me that I first felt back in the beginning of the year and on long steady efforts feel easy to push along. I’m still running the gatorskins on them as I haven’t been bothered to swap them out so that probably doesn’t help the rolling resistance that much.
The constant wind in Illinois gives a good chance to feel how the wheels react. They do grab in a cross-wind but the slight extra weight I find helps. In comparison my American Classic 420s have a similar rim profile but get blown around more easily due to their lighter weight. Given that I can afford to lose a few pounds from my middle, a lighter wheel set isn’t necessary! Despite the lack of bike time, I’m eyeing a 50km 2-man TT in July. The FP40s will definitely be in action on that day.