Strada Velocity A23/Sapim CX-Ray wheelset

Wider rims are gaining in popularity among road riders. You can buy some good wide-section wheelsets off the shelf, but you can also have them made by hand on the south coast. These Velocity A23 wheels from Strada stack up well against wheels like the HED Ardennes: they're light, comfortable and not too expensive.

The wheels are exquisitely built; Strada's own hubs are simple and classy, with sealed bearings and a 6-pawl freehub. Sapim CX-Ray spokes are about as good as it gets for a standard wheel, light and strong. You get minimalist Titanium quick releases (I didn't use them as I prefer something a bit beefier) and rim tape as standard and, if you like, Strada will polish your spokes before building for an extra fee. They had some at the London Cycle show and they looked fantastic. The rim itself is fairly light, at 426g the same as a Mavic Open Pro. The wheels build up into a set that tips the scales at 1524g which is a good deal more than the 1450g that Strada claim on their website but light for a 24/28-spoke alloy wheelset. They were true when they arrived and they're true now. No issues there.

First off, then: why 23mm rims? Well, the wider profile of the rim gives the tyre a different shape; the sidewalls are flatter and more perpendicular and this, claim Strada (and not just them) makes for a tyre better able to deform giving lower rolling resistance. The flattened profile also means a slightly larger contact patch than a standard width rim.

And they're right. These wheels really do have a different feel to narrow road rims. They're not the only wide-profile rims I've tried, and without exception I'd say that a 23mm width can give a noticable improvement in ride quality over a 21mm rim. Strada say that "it has all the benefits of a tubular tyre (smooth ride quality, lower rolling resistance) with the convenience of a clincher tyre (ease of installation, easy to repair a flat)." They're over-egging the pudding a bit there; it clearly doesn't have all the benefits of a tubular tyre or you'd see the Pros on wide clincher rims. You still have to put more material in the rim to take the pressure of the tyre forcing the sidewalls out, and you're still in danger of pinch-flatting over the rough stuff. Possibly less so, though, as the tyre doesn't bulge out so much but has a flatter side profile.

I found they were best paired with a slightly wider folding tyre, I used 25mm Zaffiro Pros for much of the testing and got great performance from that combination. I swapped them in for some Shimano RS30s on a Stevens Xenon test bike and it was like having a whole new bike to play with. If you don't believe that wheels are the single most effective upgrade you can make to a bike then you need to try swapping out a sturdy, dependable wheelset like the RS30s with something hand built and half a kilo lighter. To make it fair I then swapped them out for a pair of RS80s which are lighter than the Stradas, but I definitely preferred the feel of the A23 wheels which seem to have a very supple ride while still managing to roll quickly and track well into corners under load. Side to side flex is pretty minimal and there were no brake rub issues either climbing out of the saddle or sprinting for signs.

Verdict

Less than £500 doesn't seem like a lot of money to get a UK craftsman to make you a set of great quality wheels. The Strada A23s are a super all-round wheelset that are light enough for sportives and strong enough for year-round use.