Sunday, January 6, 2008

New Wheels

As mentioned in my first post, I am on the hunt for wheels. I ride a Bianchi Giro that I bought in September of 2006. It has been a great bike. I got it at the LBS, Turin in Evanston (also a link under My Links). I absolutely fell in love with the frame and the fact that it was built out with Shimano 105 and a set of low end Shimano wheels made it affordable, perfect for a beginner like me. Now that I have become much more serious about cycling I am ready to move up from a beginner bike. The frame has enough mojo in it that I cab build it up with better components and wheels and have myself a decent race bike (this idea is validated by the fact the the Turin Cycling Team rode the same frame during the 2007 race season, obviously built out with high end components and wheels).
So, I have been dutifully saving money for the past few months and I think I finally have enough to go get new wheels. I spent a lot of time looking at all the options and I settled on the Campagnolo Eurus.
Here is how I came to that conclusion. It was immediately obvious that I was not going to be able to afford carbon wheels, so very early on I eliminated carbon wheels from my search.
At that point I focused in on aluminum wheels. Towards the end of the summer I finally got up enough courage to ride with the fast race training rides that leave from Evanston and I noticed that a lot of the riders had Mavics, either the Ksyrium ES or SSL (by the way, the guys on those race training rides are really fast, wow). Due to that I initially thought that I would go with one of those sets but I spent a lot of time on Road Bike Review (also a link under My Links) and read a lot of reviewers that seemed to consistently complain about breaking spokes and the subsequent headaches created because of it. I quickly soured on the idea of getting one of the Mavic sets so I started looking elsewhere.
In the meantime, Bianchi released their top of the line 928 Carbon bike that had a set of Campagnolo Bora on it, the first time I had seen a Campy wheel. I am a bit embarrassed to admit it but the reason I started looking at Campy wheels was that the Boras looked totally sweet!! I love the G3 asymmetrical spokes on the rear wheel. I started researching Campy wheels and immediately focused in on the Eurus and Shamal because they where in my price range and had the G3 spoking. (Side note: I am a bit embarrassed to admit that it was the looks of the the wheel that drew me to it because it had nothing do to with me understanding the reasons why that spoking pattern might actually make it a better wheel.) I am happy to report that while researching the wheel I took the time to understand the technology the best I could so now I am drawn to buying the wheel on both looks and technological merits. Anyway, again I went to my friend Road Bike Review and read really good reviews for the Eurus and many not so good reviews for the Shamal; and since the Eurus is cheaper than the Shamal it seemed my decision was made.
Since that point I have been saving and looking for a good deal. At this point, my impatience is probably going to get the better of me and I will buy them without waiting longer to see if a deal comes along. A local shop here in the Chicago area had a set at $700 a few months back but I wasn't ready to buy. The best I have seen lately is $800. What will happen is I will get impatient, buy them at $800 and them see them a day later at $700, not complaining...I just know how it works at this point. Here is a picture of the wheels:
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1 comment:

Krazy Khania said...

I love it!! Can I link you to our blog yet?