I’ve been looking to treat myself to a new set of wheels and recently came across Parcours (who look to be UK based building up Chinese rims/hubs).
Their weights and prices are impressive, and from what I can find online they have been continually improving their products over the last few years.
My main criteria was aero dynamics, but I also do a lot of hill climbing and hilly TTs so I didn’t want a pair of complete anchors. They have published their aero testing, and it looks as through their 52mm rims are only marginally slower than their 40mm rims despite being ~100grams heavier and more expensive. My question to you is, will the extra drag reduction be worth while, or should I go for the cheaper and lighter rims and accept a minor drag penalty?
The two wheels look to perform very similarly, although I’ve never had a set of aero wheels, so I’m finding it hard to properly quantify the differences in drag in real terms. They do have a table with time saved over 40km, but my guess is that’s modelled on a pan-flat course which is definitely not representative of where I live…!
Aero testing data can be found here (comparison of their 3 main wheel models with a Shimano RS11) - Aerodynamic performance