The new Co-Motion tandem my wife and I bought has a pair of Velocity wheels on it but that isn’t my first experience with Velocity.

When I wrecked one of my awesomely light but wobble-prone Vuelta Corsa SLR rims on a pothole that reached a good portion of the way to New Zealand, I was faced with a conundrum.  Vuelta Corsa’s, a Nashbar specific wheel, are not sold as single wheels.  You can’t get a replacement hoop (rim) either.  No, I found out the hard way, they want you to buy a brand new wheelset.  I’ll keep this part of the post PG and simply say I was not pleased at receiving this news.  I wanted two new wheels like I wanted a hit in the head.  They’re not terribly pricey, at less than $400 for the set, but they’re not exactly reliable either – they have to be trued quite often (two or three times a year on Michigan roads).

I was two minutes away from purchasing another brand (Flo, if I remember) that were a little heavier but only $200 more, hoping they’d last a little bit better, when I decided to call the owner of the local bike shop.  He recommended trying Velocity.  I’d never heard of them but they’re American made so I decided to give it a go…

I ended up finding a rim that was amazingly close to the specs of the Vuelta but just a shade heavier (68 grams to be exact) – a Velocity Fusion rim.  I paid $84 for the hoop, $14 for shipping and $6 for sales tax.  $104 total and I paid $40 to have the wheel laced and trued…  $144 total, sitting on my bike ready to go.  That was almost a year ago and I’ve yet to have to get it trued again and I’ve hit some decent holes in the road.

I pulled the old Vuelta stickers off of the wheel because A) They wouldn’t send me a set to put on the new rim and B) I wasn’t about to go mismatched on a frickin’ $5,000 bike.  I’m not impressed with the added weight but the hoop’s ability to stay true far exceeded my expectations – enough that I will purchase a matching hoop when the front wheel requires it – or I’ll just go whole hog and purchase a new wheelset (about $800 for a lighter set than what’s currently on the Venge)

Then came the Tandem and the Velocity Dyad wheels that came on it – they’re standard on our Co-Motion Periscope.  They’re quite heavy, at 2,400 grams but when you’re talking about a tandem, unless you’re willing to pay $1,100 for a set that still weights almost 1,900 grams, well let’s just say that’s a lot of cheese to save a pound.

In any event, the main gist, and important part, is the Dyads that came on the Co-Motion spin beautifully. We’ve got something like 300 miles on them and I couldn’t be more pleased – and my expectations were pretty high to begin with.

If you’re looking for quality, fast alloy wheels, check out Velocity. They’ve got everything, lightweight, aero, heavy duty (including a Clydesdale line), tandem, mountain bike… and at some decent prices. A 1,400 gram wheelsets for $800 – $850.

I received nothing for writing this post.