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.
Fit Recovery 
Thanks for the tip about Velocity wheels, particularly about the fact that they have wheels for Clydesdales.
I bought a Trek last year at that was in about the same price range as your Venge, and have broken a couple spokes and have had to tune the wheels multiple times. That is despite running 35mm (!) road tires just to avoid problems when I hit one of our Connecticut potholes. Just to be clear, you guys in Michigan are complete amateurs when it comes to world-class potholes. Hey, since I’m a Clydesdale, rolling resistance is way down on the list of things to deal with to go faster, so the 35mm tires are great. Running bigger tires at lower pressure also means zero flats in 2,000 miles of riding, where I used to get flats all the time on my old mountain bike just from glass and metal splinters (apparently from street sweepers) on the road.
Given the general rep for Bontrager wheel quality which has continued to be a bugaboo on every Trek I’ve ever owned since 1979, I’m looking to replace the wheels sometime this summer. I had done only a little bit of research and hadn’t found what looked like a viable solution for 40 or 48 spoke wheels, but it’s apparent that Velocity can do that at a very reasonable price. So thank you for the reference!
I am guilty of a common problem… I have a tendency to view the world through my own filter. That said, I’m glad I could help despite myself. Enjoy those wheels, man. They’re awesome.
one doubt: doesn’t the lacing pattern contribute directly to the stiffness/rigidity of the wheel? I’m using a DT Swiss 2.0 in my spz and I have no idea if the original pattern is 2-cross on the driveside and radial on the NDS, but the fact is that this pattern isn’t good: I can hear the spokes rubbing against each other while sprinting… I think I will have it re-laced, 3-crossed.
Okay, they’re not DT Swiss 2.0’s. DT Swiss made the internals for the hubs. They’re Axis 2.0’s. I had the 4.0’s on my Venge and they’re heavy as heavy gets. Anyway, my 4.0’s have stood up quite well (I put them on my Trek 5200 rain bike). It’s not all in the lacing either. The Vuelta’s are a cheap, lightweight wheel. The expensive lightweight wheels drop weight in the hub construction and they go a little heavier in the rim. To keep costs down, Vuelta dropped the weight in the rim and has a heavier hub – this is how they achieved the cost effective, lightweight wheel. The problem therein is that the rim flexes A LOT, because it’s a little on the weak side. If the lacing pattern on my rear wheel were to blame, the Velocity hoop shouldn’t have lasted as well as it has without needing to true it. I’ll give you, some patterns are better than others, I’d guess. Not in my case though. It was a weak hoop.
Wish I could say that I am having the same kind of luck with the new Velocity hoop for my rear on the road bike. It has been nothing but trouble. That could be due to a bad build, though.
No kidding?! Never heard a bad word about them till you.