46 | AustrAliAn triAthlete
teCh talk
R OAd test
Product Tested:
Xtreme Carbon wheelscircuit in Albert Park. Through a number of
the tight corners, where we often get
pushed around by winds, when testing
deep rims, they tracked perfectly and
returned to speed very quickly - none of
the sluggish acceleration you sometimes
get with heavier wheels. While it’s hard to
notice any real difference from other
wheels we have tested when riding with a
tailwind, one of the highlights of the wheel
set is just how they perform into a
headwind. They just want to keep going,
riding seems less of an effort than with
other wheel sets, and we can only imagine
that this is down to the hub and tucked-in
spokes. Winds in Melbourne can get
moving and, as we have had with almost
all brands, there were a few hairy
moments with side wind gusts, but overall
even in Melbourne you could get away
with a pair of 90s for 80% of all races.
Having said that we are sure that if you
substituted out the 90mm for a 60mm at
the front, you could handle any race going
around, and have very little aerodynamic
loss, so that might be the better all-
around option. One area we expected the
Xtremes to not perform well in was
descending. We expected the narrow pull
of the spokes into the hub flange to
maybe not spread the pressure through
the turns as well as other brands. We were
wrong. In fact, they flew down the hills and
never gave us the feeling of being on the
edge. For the majority of athletes, we
would probably recommend going with
the 60mm front, and 90mm rear, or even
the 120mm - this combination will treat
you well from your local sprint race right
through to the Ironman World
Championships in Hawaii.
When we heard we were getting a pair
of the Xtreme Carbon wheels to test, we
expected to get a very cool looking and
very unique wheel set. What we got ended
up being so much more - an Australian
brand, ready to go, head-to-head with the
industry leaders. At $2000 for a set of
Race Grade 90s, they are competitively
priced to make an impact locally and
internationally. Naturally, we love seeing
innovative Australian companies, and
can’t wait to see where Xtreme Carbon
heads in the future and the products they
come up with.same aerodynamic profile as a solid disc
rear wheel through 0-20degrees of Yaw.
Adding to that between 30-60 degrees of
Yaw (yes, very high Yaw) they have
demonstrated that wheel can generate,
on average, dependent on wind speed,
1.25% drive or free speed, which equates
to around 0.5kph for free speed at 40kph.
As Brad from Xtreme tells us, “Sailing
mechanics is the new frontier in bicycle
wheel design.” This could lead the
company to look into different wheel
designs and possibly new bike designs
too, which can take advantage of the very
creature we fight against when racing.
While all of the above is rather
interesting the reality is, everything comes
down to how the wheels ride. Pulling the
wheels out of their box you notice they are
a little heavier than a lot of wheels out
there, but when it comes to triathlon and
time trials, this is not such a big deal. It’s
also obvious how stiff the rims themselves
are, let alone the whole wheel. Onto the
bike - they offer next to no flex, even
accelerating out of corners there was no
brake rub against a flexing rim, which is a
real testament to the build quality. Our
first outing on the Xtremes was hitting hot
laps around the Melbourne Grand Prixbecause the spokes become more
exposed as Yaw values rise. Now, only the
60mm depth wheels were tested. We
suspect that the 90mm wheels would
offer similar drag reductions or maybe just
a little less, as a deeper rim depth will
have slightly less spoke profile in the wind.
What we were really itching to test was
the 120mm (‘The Godzilla 120’) that has
just been released. Unfortunately at the
time of testing, this was not quite ready for
us. This wheel depth fascinates us, as
athletes will typically jump from an 80 or
90mm wheel depth to a disc if they want
the gold standard of rears to ride. At
120mm not only is this wheel a great
substitute for a disc but can still be legally
ridden at Kona, and seems to be the
deepest wheel commercially available.
The Godzilla rear wheel is still built
with the aero hub and axle system, so
there’s the same 25mm distance between
the hub flanges, allowing the spokes to
vertically align with the rim, as they do
with the 60s and 90s. But this is where
the wheel becomes more interesting than
its shallower brothers or sisters, as Xtreme
have designed this wheel to be reverse
parabolic like the profile of a sail, and their
calculations show that the 120 has the
XTReMe CARBon WheeLs: Very aesthetic to the eyes and so much more.