I know what you are all thinking, “ another freaking wheel review” , that’s right folks, and I am going to jamb this one down your stinking throats, because I was totally caught off guard with this product so I need to spread the volume.

First off, I have to say I am one of those types of riders who screams for the days of yore when wheels were built to last, you remember, 36 spoke wheels with loose bearing hubs you could re-pack forever, ah those GL330’s and Open 4’s from the eighties and early nineties. Wheels I would race over Belgian cobbles and have the fork crack before the wheel came out of true, some of you all are too young to remember these days, but Sunringle has been able to help my nostalgia a bit, and manage to do it with modern technology and product.

When i recieved the box of Accelerator R3.0 C’s my first impression was “what’s up with the freaking black and gold?!!, I immediately thought of Burt Reynolds Smokey and the Bandit’s black Trans-Am with their gold alloys, holy freaking 1970’s, but when I got them on the bike I starting thinking, “ freaking right on, Burt Reynolds Trans-Am holy freaking 1970’s. They actually looked good, you know the kind of look good that when nothing matches anything, so it matches everything looks good, that kind of good. I was then told that they came in silver as well, but then I was already committed to the mental image of the Trans-Am, there was no backing down.
Well I did do a bit of dissecting prior to my first group ride with these golden stallions, the spoke tension is very good, in fact some of the stiffest and well balanced I’ve gotten my hands on. Sunringle uses Wheelsmith AE15 “High Performance” spokes and slips them into Wheelsmith alloy nipples to keep weight down. The Rims have a similar profile to my old nostalgic Open 4’s but almost 20 grams lighter per rim and only 1435 grams for the set. They welded the rims to get the most strength and grooved or “machined” the brake surface to make sure the braking is smooth. I did have some initial play in the front wheel when I first installed them on the bike, and since there are no cones on the hubs to adjust I kind of panicked, only to find that the dust covers were sitting off the ceramic bearing casings. A quick easy adjustment with two fingers set the cover tightly to the bearings and the play was eliminated.

Once the group ride started and the attacks got going, I noticed right away that these wheels had little to no flex side to side, something I like about alloys allot that you don’t always get in carbons (ah the days of yore). The ceramic bearings are good quality and the rear cassette is very smooth with no sudden chain slap when your pedal stroke stops suddenly, something I have experienced on many current wheels.

After a while I forgot that I was riding these wheels for a review and just plain got into the training ride, they allowed me to feel confident enough to not worry about what I was riding. Then, suddenly, it all came back to me, on the way home I smacked a pothole which someone did not point out in front of me, and received a nice “POP-FLAT” to my front wheel. Well I thought holy crap, now this is a true freaking test, and sure enough they were still true, something I doubt happened in all those Smokey and the Bandit takes when the Trans-am had to jump the river next to the damaged bridge, if only Burt Reynolds had Accelerator R3.0 C’s on his car he would have been a lot cooler.
I give these wheels four out of five saddles.


Tech Specs

• For criterium and hill climb riding conditions
• Polished anodized gold or polished silver Assault rims welded with silver machined brake track for caliper brakes
• Wear indicator
• New black anodized City Flea hub set with ceramic bearings
• Hole Count: Front 24 and rear 24
• Wheelsmith AE15 high-performance spokes - black
• Unique KHO lacing pattern for equal tension loads on rear wheel (16 drive-side spokes, 8 non-drive-side spokes)
• Wheelsmith alloy nipples (black & red anodized)
• New SUNringle alloy QR with hollow chromoly axles
• 700c - 622mm
• Weight: 1435

by: TCM 

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 1:15 pm and is filed under , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.