Bling wheels

[Andydauddwr]

Thinking of getting some faster wheels for the Santana to improve on TT rides in 2010.  One option is the Shimano Sweet-16s.  JD are quoting £900 for a pair.  Choice will be a little limited, as it's an odd 160mm rear fork, but does anybody have any thoughts on alternatives?  For the front, I'd be half tempted to risk a planet-X wheel from my solo bike...

AC

[Martin109]

Sounds like a good idea to borrow a front wheel from a solo on the front, which then allows you to put all your spare resouces into the rear spec.

I don't have any further ideas though - just built up an improvement over the original on my Bertin, but it's still 48 spokes, Shimano 145mm OLN tandem hub on Velocity Dyad, but I imagine you're looking for something lighter than that.

[thing1]

Just spotted Sanatana have a new, lighter alternative to the sweet 16:
20/20 "Perfect vision", from Rolf Prima

Precision Tandems


Quote from The Tandem Link - Info

Rolf's for Santana: Mark Johnson of Precision Tandems wrote to us back in September to let us know Rolf Wheels has released a 160mm rear-spaced version of it's Prima Vigor Tandem wheelset called the "Perfect Vision" (Geez-o-pete, I guess Perfect is the new Mega at Santana these days).

The Santana-compatible 160mm rear-spaced tandem wheelset at 1768g per set (w/o q.r or rim strips) is about 1/2 a pound lighter than the Shimano/Santana Sweet 16 at 2055g per set (w/o q.r or rim strips). While not cheap at $1,495 (gasp) are priced to be competitive with the Sweet 16s. I should note, the 160mm "Perfect Vision" wheels have 20 spokes front & rear vs. the Santana-Shimano Sweet 16's with 16 front & rear. According to the folks at Santana, Sweet 16's will continue to be available to consumers.

Note Regarding Rolf: In case you missed it, Rolf Dietrich sold Rolf Prima Wheel Systems to Brian Roddy (majority owner and one of Rolf Dietrich's original partners) and two other long-time members of the Rolf team back in August. There are several articles on the web regarding the change as well as a press-release from Rolf.

(I think the author missed the 20/20  aka perfect vision pun in the model name...)

[clarion]

Yeah - don't ya just keep thinking the Sweet 16s are a bit on the heavy side?

[thing1]

Yeah - don't ya just keep thinking the Sweet 16s are a bit on the heavy side?

For the price, yes! ... According to JD our 36/40 spoke wheels are barely any difference in weight to the sweet 16s. (Would be interesting to get them on some scales to check; precision tandems have got some equivalent wheels down as being 400g more, but that's using different rims to ours)