The Style of Carbon Wheels for Cross

A local roadracer emails the local roadracing listserve the following information:

From:
To: mabra-uscf
Subject: FS: Non-dimpled Zipp 404's; Tubular; Shimano - $500

These wheels are too good for me. I can't even look directly at them, I'm so ashamed of my weak legs. Please, someone take them away from me and end the maddening torment that confronts me every time I hop on the trainer with these carbon beauties hanging directly in front of me, taunting me, laughing at my chicken legs.

(They've seen a couple races and no crashes. Rims are in great shape, hubs have new bearings, and the wheels are as true as my reasons for selling them) Contact me if interested in buying or seeing the wheels, located in ______.

Wow, great price on the wheels. I guess the seller upgraded to Cat 3 and realized, with horror, the error of his ways.

Not one to miss an opporunity, Teammate of the Rouleur KenBob sent the following message to the club listserve:

Would be good 'cross wheels.

Well yes, perhaps, but the combination of carbon tubulars, Zipps in fact, discount pricing and melding with 'cross is incongruous, simply unacceptable, if a rider wants to do it with style.

Yes, that's right. You heard me. You can't go buying discount carbon tubulars for 'cross. It's just not done.

Running carbon rims in cross is like being in a family with a major history of heart disease and eating lunch at Five Guys every day. No offense there, Verne, but you're not risking disaster or even courting it; instead you've got a hand on it's knee, moving upwards, and you're thinking about its daddy's shotgun. You are going to break the damn wheels.

This fact, this ineluctable fate, dictates how you must handle the running, rocking or other employment of 'cross wheels. Did the diggers go over their top and meet their end at Gallipoli whinging and whining? Did the Kamikazes head back to base for a bit more mild green tea before making a fatal plunge? Did you really wear white shoes and a seersucker suit a week after labor day? Of course not.

Style and manliness dictates you handle things in a certain way. To look for discount carbon tubular wheelsets for 'cross cheapens the things, kind of like getting drunk before a duel.

Truly, if you have to ask how much they cost you shouldn't be running them in 'cross. The attraction of carbon fiber wheels in 'cross is the dire financial consequence of destroying them - an event almost certain to occur thanks to the completely inexplicable presence of rocks, bumps, transitional surfaces, wooden barriers, roots and first turn crashes in cyclocross racing.

Showing cost-consciousness in your purchase of carbon wheels for 'cross is akin to asking your friends if they think your significant other may be cheating on you. The only thing more un-stylish and unsightly than the fact that such a disaster may be occurring, is publicly discussing your worries about it.

No, the proper way to rock carbon wheels in 'cross is to have a $3000 set of the wicked light Campy wheels, and to ride them with devil-may-care aplomb. If you have them, you simply must flaunt them. You should go looking for opportunities to catch big air mid-race. Post race, you should initiate an impromptu roller derby and put up a hundred of your own money for the winner, or at least have an impromptu bump drill with an arch rival. You should take your 'cross bike mountain biking at the Watershed, or at least at Patapsco. Build a half pipe in your back yard and start a new sport - X-treeeeem-O-cross. See if it's true that the Zipp Clydesdales really are bulletproof, and shoot them, with a .460 Weatherby.

Even thinking about buying a pair of lightly used, heavily discounted Zipps is unthinkable.

A chap in the B race at Wissahickon last year showed us all how to do it. He converted his front carbon wheel - I think it may have been a Ritchey - into a square shape in the first turn. He then sprinted into the pits carrying the bike and hopped on an identically equipped bike and rode halfway around. When he came around his "A" bike was ready, with a new carbon wheel. He snatched it on the way through the pit and flung it under himself rather heavily at the top of the runup, not even blinking at the $700+ loss he'd just suffered. This perfectly demonstrated how to rock these tragically light wheels - with gusto and fearlessness. My teammate Dave B. is another example; he rides a set of carbon wheels that he openly hopes will break. Dave, I applaud you.

So while I wish this seller the best of luck in selling this wheelset, I cannot countenance the idea of purchasing them to be a 'cross wheelset.

No, if you're interested in carbon Zipps or any other carbon wheelset for 'cross, I suggest you look into paying full retail, preferably at one of the Squadra's bike shop sponsors like Contes of Arlington or Bikeman, or at my friend Jon's shop. Anything less is a fashion crime, and will not be tolerated.