Gain from bladed spokes in standard wheel?

jalabert

Hi

I'm about to buy a new wheelset and I'm looking at a standard 32 hole wheelset consisting of the Alexrims R400(dimensions much like the open pro) with dt aerolite bladed spokes(blade is 2.3mm wide and 0.9 thick).
No question about it, black bladed spokes look fast :-) However I'm unsure of the actual gain??
The reason I'm going for this semi lightweight wheel instead of a real aero wheelset is because I feel a lightweight rim makes the wheel accelerate noticable faster. However will this small gain be lost several times again by the extra drag?
Would it be smarter to go for 500g 30mm rim instead of the 400g 19mm or is aero gain from this unnoticable when it's still a 32 spoke wheel?

I hope someone will have a go at these tricky questions :-)

Regards,
Peter

MGSuarez

I could be wrong but, I think that I remeber reading somewhere that a aero gain is only noticiable at a rim depth of 34mm or something like that. I would either go full on light weight or full aero. Depending what the wheel was intended for. I will search for that article.

rv

I've seen 34 and 38 as minimum rim depth for an aero advantage.

that said, bladed spokes on a 32 spoke, box section rim buys you nothing.

MGSuarez

I have a set of A/C 350 with some bladed spokes (AE15) for climbing wheels. Probably not much aero advantage. But, never underestimate the look factor. That is if you are into that kinda thing. I just like the way bladed spokes look. I think they are also stiffer.