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Jason Sumner: Welcome back to Velo News TV. I'm Jason Sumner and this time, coming to you from the Interbike Trade Show in Las Vegas Nevada joined by Velo New’s technical editor Zack Vestal.
This is the first of our daily reports from the three-day trade show. Today we are going to talk road wheels. Zack, what did you see out there today?
Male: You know we are seeing a lot of exciting developments in road wheels. We have seen new products from Easton, from Reynolds and also from SRAM kind of spanning a range of price points in different new technologies.
The most exciting is probably the Reynolds wheel. It is very pricy but also very high-tech. The Reynolds racer wheel sort of marks a new direction for Reynolds the company. They have brought back Paul Lew as a designer and he’s come up with a show stopper. It is a sub-900-gram carbon tubular wheelset. It cost $6,000 dollars.
The carbon spokes true NACA airfoils. There are three flanges on the rear hub which limits torque deflection. And boron is incorporated into the carbon fiber rim. That is a 46mm deep carbon tubular rim so this looks to be a very fast, very light wheelset.
So another wheelset that I really like is the Easton EC90 TT wheel. It is a 90mm deep carbon tubular rim. And Easton is really taking a direct shot at the Zipp 808 with this wheel.
They claimed that it is as fast or faster in most windy angle situations. The front hub is very narrow at 50 mm between flanges and the rim itself is supper narrow at the trailing edge. They feel that this is the best way to achieve the optimal aerodynamics.
And finally SRAM is doing us all the favor by introducing three alloy wheelsets at very affordable price points. Features include 27 or 30 mm depth rims, hybrid toroidal rim profile on the deeper section wheels. Hub technology burrows from the Zipp hubset, very easily rebuildable, very smooth bearings, definitely a boon to cyclists everywhere.
Jason Sumner: Interesting stuff all across the board.
Seems to me it’s like half the companies here now are producing wheels. Is that a trend you see?
Male: Yeah, absolutely. Wheels are always an exciting thing for cyclist, easy to upgrade on a bicycle, pretty much instant tune ability for your bicycle. Whether you want lighter wheels or more aerodynamic wheels, it is quick and easy and a lot of companies are getting on board with that.
Jason Sumner: Okay. That’s about all the time we have that. But before we go, I want to just give you an idea, get the map here from Brian of how big this trade show is.
This right here is a list of all the exhibitors. This is the map so lots to see here at the Interbike Trade Show.
For now though, we are going to sign off. For Zack Vestal, I’m Jason Sumner. Tune back in all week to Velo News TV.
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