These are two wheels that top the charts as far as surface area on a wheel goes. Zipp has made some claims, and done some testing on the 1080, and HED is now releasing the HED 3 Deep to consumers.
The Zipp 1080 has a 108mm deep toroidal rim shape, is tubular only, and rear wheel only in the first realease. No dates other than “next year” were offered as delivery timelines for the front tubular or clincher models. Tubulars will come first. They do not have the rim built up as of yet.
The HED 3 Deep is a 90mm Jet rim glued to a HED 3, which adds some weight and plenty of surface area. This may be a beast to handle in the wind for some, but it has been on the pro circuit this year in many tri and road races. The cost is a bit more than a standard HED 3, and can be made for front or rear in tubular or clincher.
I doubt we’ll see the impact of that merger for at least 6-8 months, maybe longer. The 1080 is one of the cronerstone 2008 products, msot of which have production plans set now, so to pull them out would be, well, bad. I would also imagine that there is some additional engineering that will need to be done to make these wheels clincher. From what I have read, the Sub-9 Disc won’t be available in a clincher at all.
And, kudos to you R10Carbon for not being insulting, degarding, or humiliating yourself in your post. You get a gold star!
If they are going to release the HED3 Deep, why not make dedicated molds instead of relying on cobbling together parts (if that’s how they are still doing it)??
"does the Hed 3 deep have the torroidal shape? "
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I do not believe the Jet is, but understand that the Stingers is toroidal
The Jet60 is, I would assume that the Jet90 also shares the same shape. Either way that H3D is dead sexaaaaaaaay!!
Why would they? They have molds for the hed 3, the have molds for the jet fairing, add some glue and…poof! A new wheel that they can make a good chunk of money on for minimal additional overhead.
Got to wonder if the Zipp - SRAM deal will have anything to do with product availibility.
Zipp is going to basically operate independently (this is assuming the deal is confirmed, which it is not yet), but if/when it is, it will only mean good things for availability. SRAM has the resources to help Zipp get products developed faster and produced faster. I don’t think the partnership will result in anything but positives in terms of what we all see coming out of Speedway.
