00:00These wheels are £1,050 and these wheels are £3,200. That's a whopping difference of £2,150.
00:09So we've devised two tests to see if we can find a difference between the two different
00:13wheel sets which for that amount of money you'd hope you could. So I've been joined by Stefan
00:18today and he's going to be our guinea pig. Stefan what's the first test that we're going to do?
00:22So first of all we're going to be looking at the aero performance of these wheels and so
00:26we're going to be riding around a flat TT lap devised by Simon Smyth. What's the second test
00:31we're going to be doing? So the second test is going to be a hill climb we're going to be
00:34going
00:34up the leaf hill and putting in the effort with the two different wheel sets and seeing what the time
00:39is at the top. So Stefan what do you think we could expect to see from this test? So the
00:44idea here is
00:45that there are some things like a TT helmet or a skin suit which the aero performance and the
00:51difference between them is pretty tiny it's not something that you're going to really notice so
00:56much on a ride it needs to be verified in really controlled conditions a velodrome or a wind tunnel
01:00there are some differences between components such as between a dutch bike sit up and beg and a drop
01:06bar road bike where you're going to see those differences like obviously out on the road you'll
01:10feel it instantly you're going to see that in the timings and so the question with these wheels is
01:14is it going to be like the dutch bike is the difference going to be that palpable or is the
01:19difference
01:19marginal are we going to see a significant time gap between these two wheels of a similar depth
01:24but very different price point absolutely right then i think we should get the first set of wheels
01:28fitted and do the first run in a test like this there are plenty of variables we need to keep
01:42a lid on
01:42so we've used the same ties sealing cassettes and rotors across both wheel sets there are obviously some
01:48variables that we can't have any control of those being the wind the traffic and how stefan paces
01:52his effort so this is very much a rough around the edges real world test so a little more information
01:57about those wheels the set that cost 1050 pounds are the zip 303s's and the ones coming
02:03at 3200 pounds are the zip 353 nsw's the difference in weight is significantly closer than
02:09that of the price differential with just 236 grams separating the two wheel sets the actual weights
02:14with tape coming at 1308 grams for the 353s and 1544 grams for the 303s's the rim profiles are
02:23incredibly different between the two wheel sets although both are optimized around 28mm tires the
02:28nsw's come with an internal rim width of 25 millimeters compared to 23 millimeters on the 303s's
02:33these are both on the wide side for road wheels but the nsw's are significantly so together with the
02:39external rim width of 30 millimeters the tires make a notably smoother and straighter transition to
02:44the rims of the nsw's this has been proved to be more aero in the wind tunnel that narrower
02:49internal width on the 303s's gives the tires more of a mushroom profile another distinctive
02:55element of the 353 nsw's can be seen along the sides of the rims small dimples are molded in similar
03:00to that of a golf ball which is supposed to aid efficiency the fact that a number of them are
03:04partially filled by the stick-on logos may mitigate their effectiveness also the distinctive
03:09undulation of the 353 nsw wheels has been done largely to improve the stability and crosswinds
03:19okay so that's the tt done how did they feel and so it didn't feel like there's a massive difference
03:25between uh the wheels and so it wasn't like a difference between going from a shallow section
03:29to a deep section that kind of thing but there's still some differences in the sensation between them
03:33i think that with the 353 nsw's it was mainly flat but there were some rises and on those uh
03:39rises it
03:39did feel like that a little bit more um responsive sort of when pressing on the pedals and when it
03:44came to um ticking along the flat um i mean like this uh isn't a double blind trial like um
03:50and so i knew
03:51exactly what wheels i was riding so there is a certain amount of cognitive bias coming in there but
03:55they felt nice and going along the flat they felt fast it felt really good and ticking over and so
04:00um yeah the feeling of the m353 nsw's was really quite good but then the 303s weren't bad at all
04:06either i guess it's that thing of okay well do they feel 2 000 pounds better and that's a trickier
04:11question to answer so then in power numbers um were you able to match a normalized power well in terms
04:18of
04:18the normalized power i managed to keep things pretty much perfectly the same between the between the
04:23tests which was quite good but in terms of the times that turned in there's a bit of a surprise
04:28bit of a turn up for the books there with the 353 nsw's uh coming in slightly slower than the
04:34303s
04:35and i can tell you the reason uh the traffic between the guns um it was yeah it was quite
04:40different and unfavorably in terms of the uh 353 nsw's and so i think that's what uh yeah definitely
04:46caused the difference there and meant that they ended up turning in a slower time okay so really we're
04:51dealing with fine margins because it's not to say that you know the 303s are slow wheels um it's just
04:57that actually the difference between them wasn't great enough to overcome the variable the
05:01uncontrollable variable of traffic yeah exactly pretty much okay so i think we need to now put
05:06them up a hill climb and see how they perform there
05:32so
05:33so that's the hill climb done i imagine that probably wasn't too pleasant for you so how did you find
05:37them um did you notice a difference between the weight because obviously these are 275 grams
05:41lighter did you feel that um so they're both pretty they're both pretty good wheels i mean it's not
05:46like the 303s um were feeling particularly heavy they're still around about that um 1500 gram mark
05:52which is a pretty nice weight for a wheel set the 353 nsw's are that a little bit lighter and
05:57yeah on
05:58the steepest gradients um you do feel that a little bit more responsive like you get that sensation through
06:03the pedals as you're um pressing cranks and then were there any other kind of benefits of those wheels
06:08that you you felt um no i mean it wasn't a particularly a fast run up the hill the speeds
06:14were a little bit a little bit low because yeah because of the gradients and so um i don't think
06:18that me aerodynamics um i would have really um came into it i didn't have that like ticking over
06:23sensation at all like yeah you do on the flat and so yeah really it's um mostly the other weight
06:28differences here about making the differences okay so put me out of my misery what was the
06:32difference between the two wheel sets up the climb so over about a six and a half minute climb the
06:37difference came down to about three to four seconds so really quite close and that was with the 303s
06:44the heavier wheel set turning in that faster time it was the 353 nsw which was just a little bit
06:50slower
06:50and that is purely down to knowing how to pace the effort and knowing where to put the power down
06:54wasn't it so again actually really we've come down to fine margins once again
06:58even though there's a large difference in weight which is obviously something that would get
07:01affected on a climb we've essentially landed in the same space where it's again very marginal
07:05but not a marginal price difference yeah definitely i mean when you think about a total
07:10system weight so i'm 68 kilos a bike you know is under 10 kilos what's 200 grams like in in
07:16that
07:16complex in that whole matrix when it comes to the sensation like you you do feel the difference
07:21of those 200 grams but when it comes to the actual performance the times that you're putting in
07:24like it is a very very small difference i mean it's almost about the same as just taking a phone
07:29out of your pocket and throwing it to to the side sure and so um yeah when it's back to
07:33back and you're
07:34testing between the wheels the difference is something that you can feel but in terms of
07:38just how much higher up the strava leaderboard you're going to go it's not so much is it yeah
07:43absolutely okay so putting the numbers to one side for a moment um because it can be very easy to
07:48get
07:48bogged down in power numbers and times subjectively do these feel two thousand pounds better well i
07:55think that comes down to how much two thousand pounds really means to you i mean this wasn't a
07:59blind test at all but i did feel a difference with the uh with the lighter wheel set i mean
08:03that's
08:03200 grams difference yeah it's still it's the kind of difference that you do notice even if it doesn't
08:08turn around uh much faster time and so i think that um yeah there's kind of two reasons uh to
08:13be going for
08:14the uh 353 nsw's like one is uh you're like racing at the very pinnacle and those milliseconds are
08:19exactly what counts and you're not going to sacrifice anything um anywhere and second is
08:24if you have that money to spare and you do want that feeling and you think that feeling is worth
08:29yeah two thousand pounds to you then yeah by all means go ahead uh for me personally i think that
08:34when it comes to choosing between the wheels i'd go for the 303s's the difference isn't so great
08:39and um i feel like it just makes that bit more monetary sense doesn't it it does indeed so there
08:45we have it that's our car park test wrapped up and really these tests were devised so that we could
08:50really see how they would perform in the real world and i think between these two it's very clear to
08:54see
08:54that it's very fine margins and when the variables aren't in your favor clearly a wheelset which is a
09:00lot more expensive may not perform as you might want it to so let us know your thoughts down in
09:05the
09:05comments let us know which ones you would go for if you enjoyed the video drop it a like subscribe
09:09to the channel for more content and we will see you again very soon
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