Cycling Wheels: Zipps versus Reynolds

On Saturday, I participated in my last sprint triathlon of the season, the Crescent Moon Sprint Triathlon. The race involved a 750 meter swim in Cherry Creek reservoir, a 20k ride (about 12.3 miles), and a 5k run (3.1 miles). This was my best triathlon yet. I feel I'm in the best shape of the season, with my half-marathon just 2 weeks ago, and a number of good training sessions since then. I also participated in the Harvest Moon Long Course Aquabike event last weekend. For the Aquabike event, I swam 1.2 miles and rode 56 miles, my longest event so far (excluding century rides, which really aren't races).

I was wavering on whether to even do the Crescent Moon, as I felt I had done enough for the season. But I had a conversation with a friend of mine who has very nice biking equipment. He offered to let me try out his Zipp 404 road racing wheels. I have been flirting with the idea of replacing my stock, semi-aerodynamic Reynolds Alta Comp wheels with something faster. The Zipp 404s cost around $1500 for the pair, and are designed to be very aerodynamic. My friend estimated that on a flat course, I could pick up 1 to 1.5 miles per hour of speed. As it turns out, I had rode the course earlier in the summer during the "Tri the Creek" sprint triathlon, in what I believe was my fastest bike ride yet, at 22.7 MPH over the 13 mile course. Now, I was thinking if I picked up that much speed, I'd be over 24 MPH, and certainly one of the fastest riders in my age group. I'm a sucker for an experiment, especially when it involves cool new equipment. So I took my buddy up on his offer to borrow the Zipp 404s.

One neat toy I decided to add to my bike setup before the race was a GPS cycle computer. I went with the Garmin Edge 305 ($225 on Amazon.com). This unit gives you accurate speed and distance measurments, and most importantly for the coolness factor, plots the precise course on a Google-like map, providing actual speed, altitude, and distance at every point.

I felt like the results of this experiment would be fairly representative for me, if I decided to buy Zipp 404s. Of course, to be accurate for a typical rider, an such an experiment should include many participants of varying abilities on varying courses. Better yet, using a controlled environment like a wind tunnel would be ideal. I don't know why cycle equipment manufacturers, or possibly some of the cycle equipment magazines or trade publications don't do this. I can only believe that the actual results are less impressive than the what's implied by the slick marketing campaigns.

So, the results of my experiment:

The Zipp 404s, on this course, with me as a rider, are 0.6 MPH faster than the stock Reynolds Alta Comp wheels. The Reynolds netted 22.7 MPH, and the Zipps came in at a very respectable 23.3 MPH, the 4th fastest in my age group. To see actual results for each race, click the link the below, locate the Men's 45-49 age group, then look for my name, Kirstan Vandersluis:

2009 Tri the Creek
2009 Crescent Moon Triathlon Results

So, the question for me is, does it make sense to spend $1500 for a wheelset to improve my speed by 0.6 MPH? That translates to significant time, especially for longer distances. For now, I'm on the fence and will have to think about this. I have thought of several alternatives, as well. The most likely candidate is to purchase a Renn Disk for the rear wheel (about $600), then get something fairly aero for the front as well, possibly the Zipp 404. That setup should be even faster, since a disk in the rear should outperform a Zipp 404 in the rear. I'm not sure by how much. I guess that leaves room for another experiment!