RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
Cool little video from Shane Miller.
Should you balance your road bike wheels?
- Thread starter RojoRacing
- Start date
DavidCH
In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
I enjoyed the video. I didn't know you could get golf adjustment weights. I just stuck on an old magnet on the other side of the valve with some duck tape on my drive wheel. When I was achieving my max speed last year I could feel the difference. It helps with the confidence too. I like Shane's solution more as its more aerodynamic.
trapdoor2
Zen MBB Master
What affects your performance more, minor vibration that it essentially cancelled/damped out by the interaction between the tire and the road (and your personal attach points) or an additional 28g of weight (2 wheels X 14g)?
On a smooth velodrome track, I would be balancing my wheels (I think he sez that). On the road where I have to accelerate that 28g with every push of the pedal, I think I'd live with a little massage from my tires. If I'm Jason and bombing down Mt. McKinley at 100mph, I'd be damn sure my wheelset was balanced.
On a smooth velodrome track, I would be balancing my wheels (I think he sez that). On the road where I have to accelerate that 28g with every push of the pedal, I think I'd live with a little massage from my tires. If I'm Jason and bombing down Mt. McKinley at 100mph, I'd be damn sure my wheelset was balanced.
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
super slim
Zen MBB Master
LarryOz
Cruzeum Curator & Sigma Wrangler
I an ashamed to say: way to many to count: (probably take me a week to balance them all!
here on bikes:
here on wall:
Mark B
Zen MBB Master
Just a guess, here, but I think it's safe to assume you don't open that roll-up door too often!
Mark
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
The 28grams of weight will take more energy to accelerate with each push of the pedal but it will also keep you rolling closer to the same speed between pedal power strokes. It for that reason I use my disc wheel covers in my mountain races so balance your wheels will save more then hurt. Only time the extra weight might hurt more then help is low speed racing with tons of acceleration points like cyclocross. And just in case you guys were wondering, no my wheels are not balanced even though I have considered it on numerous occasions. I will be giving it a shot after seeing this video though simply to see if I can feel any difference when I'm upwards of 50 mph.
Another thing to note is it's fair to guess Shane's wheel were relatively balanced from the factory but adding a tire and 14 gram steel valve stem to the equation will net you 14 grams of imbalance. Now if you're using a 8 grams alloy tubeless stem then you'll most likely only need 8 grams of weight on the other side. One other thing to consider is when using tubeless sealant in the tires any stanimals that form in the tire will through off the balance so this idea of balancing your wheels could be a mute point after a month of use.
Here's another idea to chew on in regarded to balanced wheels and tubeless. If your wheel was perfectly balanced with a clean tire and fresh sealant then you can periodically throw the wheel on the balancer stand to check of any funny business has formed inside the tire. If you have a large stanimal in there then your wheel will no longer be balanced so that can be a prompt to open it up and clean and add new sealant.
jond
Zen MBB Master
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
jond
Zen MBB Master
I once used stans sealant on my mtbs. Picked out many giant boogers as above.
Eventually went back to tubes to avoid mess despite all advantages.
Crazy but I always carried a tube just in case.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
I've actually swiped a patent and made my own chitosan biopolymer sealant, with mesoporous silicagel and aluminosilicate nano-particles, even improved it somewhat (I think 
).
Works as well as Stans (or better - at least at plugging small pores with minimum 'sweating' and air loss in porous tires like Continental) and would not form 'boogers', ever - the mechanism of action is different - logjam action instead of PH-induced rapid polymerisation.
).Works as well as Stans (or better - at least at plugging small pores with minimum 'sweating' and air loss in porous tires like Continental) and would not form 'boogers', ever - the mechanism of action is different - logjam action instead of PH-induced rapid polymerisation.
bazzawill
Guru
Um sounds good can I get someI've actually swiped a patent and made my own chitosan biopolymer sealant, with mesoporous silicagel and aluminosilicate nano-particles, even improved it somewhat (I think
Works as well as Stans (or better - at least at plugging small pores with minimum 'sweating' and air loss in porous tires like Continental) and would not form 'boogers', ever - the mechanism of action is different - logjam action instead of PH-induced rapid polymerisation.
Balor
Zen MBB Master
Umm, not sure. The patent is there, but I don't think you can buy it anywhere, actually.
I'm from Russia and shipping a portion I've made would likely be prohibitively expensive.
I've described what I've found and how I did it here:
http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-components/best-tubeless-brew-406115-81.html
A word of caution: it DOES "sweat" a bit in a high-pressure, very porous tires like Continental Grand Prix or Speed King, but those are definitely NOT classified as tubeless and I'm doing it at my own risk.
It also 'spits out' the plugs when tear is large enough and pressure is high enough, but so does any other commercial sealant - don't expect a miracle... though, if you put some cotton flox into the tire before you seal it up, plugging ability seems to be drastically increased. You an do that with any other conventional latex sealant as I understand, though it might provide a point of booger 'crystallization'.
The air holds just fine, though. I've experimenting with crosslinking an interpenetrating polymer network of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (something outside of the scope of the original patent) plus added an other, inorganic polymer - seems to make things ever better, but I've yet to do exhaustive testing, unfortunately.
I'm from Russia and shipping a portion I've made would likely be prohibitively expensive.
I've described what I've found and how I did it here:
http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-components/best-tubeless-brew-406115-81.html
A word of caution: it DOES "sweat" a bit in a high-pressure, very porous tires like Continental Grand Prix or Speed King, but those are definitely NOT classified as tubeless and I'm doing it at my own risk.
It also 'spits out' the plugs when tear is large enough and pressure is high enough, but so does any other commercial sealant - don't expect a miracle... though, if you put some cotton flox into the tire before you seal it up, plugging ability seems to be drastically increased. You an do that with any other conventional latex sealant as I understand, though it might provide a point of booger 'crystallization'.
The air holds just fine, though. I've experimenting with crosslinking an interpenetrating polymer network of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (something outside of the scope of the original patent) plus added an other, inorganic polymer - seems to make things ever better, but I've yet to do exhaustive testing, unfortunately.
