Lance Armstrong used to say it is all about the bike. We now know that wasn't entirely true, but does cycling with expensive deep section wheels actually give you that much of an advantage? Is the added cost actually worth the increase in performance? On this episode of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling Podcast we ask our Cycling Coach Devlin Eyden for his thoughts in cycling with deep section wheels.

Transcript

Brad Brown:        Welcome onto this edition of the Ask Coach Parry Cycling podcast, I’m Brad Brown, I’ve got Devlin Eyden with us once again. Devlin, we’ve got another gear question today and it’s got to do with deep section wheels and obviously you can start going crazy when it comes to buying new wheels and the cost just keeps on escalating, but the question today has got to do with, should you be riding deep section or should you not and does the cost actually benefit you as a rider?

Devlin Eyden:       I think on this point it firstly comes down to what sort of rider are you? I think if you’re someone who is more towards the sharp end of the field, someone who is really pushing for time as well, it’s going to have its benefits to have deep section wheels, it also just helps with the aerodynamics a little bit more and generally whether they’re deep section or just a carbon fibre wheel, your more expensive wheels, the lighter the wheel is, that’s out there as well, is something that’s going to be more beneficial to you on the bike, without a doubt.

The flipside to that though is if you aren’t necessarily racing at the sharp end and you’re not necessarily pushing for an incredible time, you obviously want to improve your time, I feel that can be done a little bit better with training rather than spending money on expensive gear.

Training harder vs expensive wheels - Lay off the cheese burgers

It does, as you mentioned, wheels especially can go for astronomical prices and you might shave off a couple of seconds, maybe a minute here and there in a really long ride, but I don’t know if the cost necessarily is what’s going to benefit you as opposed to improving on your training slightly, that you can get better benefits there than what you actually would on changing a set of wheels.

BB:           We always joke, I’ve got a mate who talks about it quite often and you’ll often see it, guys will buy themselves a brand new set of wheels and it costs between 10-15 grand and they’re slightly lighter than their old wheels and they’re doing it because they’re slightly lighter, but ja, it’s pretty easy to lose a couple of kilograms just by eating healthy and laying off the cheeseburgers, you don’t need to go and spend an extra 15 grand on a set of wheels to save a few hundred grams.

DE:           It sure is.

BB:           Devlin, thank you so much for your time once again here on the Ask Coach Parry podcast, much appreciated. We look forward to catching up again next time. Until then, from the two of us, it’s cheers.