You Jerk!

Yesterday over on the Bike Jerks blog, Jeff threw out a little love our way on one of the prototype A23 Wheelsets that we sent his way to rage on. We definitely feel his words are golden, especially when he speaks on the equipment he rides. His thoughts are being echoed by everyone who has gotten ride time on these gems.

Enjoy Jeff's thoughts:

To be upfront about this, the wheels were freebies given to me to test by Dave over at Handspun, and as you may know I have a tight relationship with the dudes over at Velocity. Let's not beat around the bush, I'm a huge Velocity advocate. They support the hell out of the alleycat racing scene, make great products, and have amazing customer service. To say I'm a fan of the company is an understatement. They are a shining example of awesomeness in the sometimes dark world of the bike industry. As a fan of the company, I'm always eager to beat the hell out their new stuff, so here's how my experience has been with this A23 wheelset.

These are by far the lightest wheels I own, or have ever owned. They are low spoke count, bladed with alloy nips, the rear hub has an alloy cassette body and aggressive cutouts, and the rim is pretty light.

I have been riding this set since the end of February on my cross bike. I have ridden trails, pulled the trailer, commuted, ran them into potholes and generally kicked the crap out of them for three months. I have trued the front exactly zero times and have only trued the rear once. The rear had some pretty good side to side action, but you have to remember that I would never ever build myself a set of wheels two cross/radial rear, unless they were strictly for racing. So given that, I feel like the rear has stood up to the beatings pretty well given that these wheels were definitely not intended for what I'm doing with them. I was riding a fat tire (38c) which I'm sure helped protect the rim, but still, for a lightweight road racing wheelset they've taken the abuse very well.

They're rock solid, super fast, and I think pretty darn sexy. So sexy in fact that I plan on buying (with my own money) another pair (likely 24 hole front two cross, 28 rear three cross drive, two non drive) for my forthcoming Peacock Groove. Or I may just swap these over to that bike.

These things are amazing, and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a lightweight road rim, that can be used as an all-arounder as well as for racing. As for the hubs I've had no issues with them either.

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And I know you're wondering... yes, the wheelsets will be available soon! Be sure to check out all of the other posts on the Bike Jerks site. Stellar photos and a solid read.