As the title says, looking at making the jump to tubeless and mavic’s UST system interests me. I know there’ve been some posts on this before but I haven’t seen anything on here or online about the difference between the super light version and the regular pro carbon version.
From what I can see, the SLs are 200 grams or so lighter, and have a better hub/spokes. They are also 800 euros more . Any experiences or thoughts? FWIW, I’m about 74 kilos, and will be riding them in a lot of hilly/mountainous contexts.
I have the Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels. I’ve never ridden the non-SL wheels, so I can’t comment on the comparison. I do like the SLs, though. They feel solid and the braking is reasonably good; still not like good pads on aluminum, but no problems. Every once in awhile I do rides with long, steep descents and while I think about the potential for overheating, I’ve never had any indication of it happening. For reference, I’m about 68kg right now.
They are noticeably heavier than my carbon tubulars, but I find these wheels good enough I pretty much don’t use the tubulars any more, even in races.
It’s worth noting the freehub is quite “stiff” when new; with your bike in a stand, when you rotate your pedals backwards, the wheel will spin backwards. After awhile that stops happening, though I guess if it really bothers you there is a bearing shield or something you could remove.
Overall I’ve been very happy with the wheels. $800 Euros seems like an awful lot for 200 grams, but given that they’re not super light wheels it is nice to get the slightly lighter model.
Thanks for the reply. I have an older set of enve wheels that have already delaminated once, so yeah, sometimes I just get that life in front of my eyes feeling on long steep descents. That said, the closest I’ve ever come to dying on a bike was when an elderly couple pulled out in front of me during a long stage race descent when I was doing about 50mph. And I was on aluminum. ha.
I’m almost thinking about spending a little more still and just getting the zipp 303 firecrest. Not tubeless out of the box, but that braking seems to be the best.
But I digress. Between these two, I had the same feeling. It’s not a super light wheel to begin with (heavier than my enves), so I was a little hesitant to go with the heavier version.
Last year I was on the Cosmic Pro Carbons and the year before the SL’s. Honestly not any real difference in the wheels, apart from the SL hubs look so much better. Everything else was pretty much business as normal.
For what is is worth Empirical Cycling did a podcast on rotating weight and made for some interesting listening.
. Any experiences or thoughts? FWIW, I’m about 74 kilos, and will be riding them in a lot of hilly/mountainous contexts.