Bike Upgrade Summary 2012

From the 2 posts below I have made a brief reference to some potential benefits of upgrading the wheels on my Focus.

I bought a Focus Cayo 105 from Wiggle at the start of 2010 as an upgrade from my 2009 Giant Defy 4. The Focus is a really good entry level Carbon bike and was a big upgrade from my Defy. I didn't spend any money on the Cayo in 2010, riding it as delivered. In 2011 I fitted a Short Cage 105 rear dérailleur for cosmetic reasons only and changed the tyres. However in 2012 I was looking for some bigger improvement and decided that some wheels would make an improvement. I spent some time looking at what was a sensible upgrade - looking at cost, weight, and other factors. After a lot of review I selected some Shimano RS80 C24 wheels (here).

Noel already had a pair and they seemed really good, plus everywhere I looked the reviews were pretty well overwhelmingly positive.

I also got some Continental GP4000s tyres (here).

This combination seemed to make a real difference the first time I road the bike, but it has been over the past couple of months (March April 2012) when I have put more miles on them that I do believe that they have made a big difference, especially when climbing, but also on the flat - it seems easier to accelerate up to a cruising speed and up hill I seem to be a gear higher than previously.

In terms of overall weight these wheels are light (~1550g for the pair) and the wheels that came with the Cayo originally (Cole Rollen) were not bad (~1750g for the pair) so although there is only a small weight loss the 'feel' of the wheels and the performance gain seems significantly more than 250g worth of improvement.

So would I recommend the Shimano wheels - definitely yes