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Identify consumer needs (user benefit (draft ) (smooth ride, road shock…

- - - - Stability
        
        Acceleration #
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
        
        Handling
        
        Satisfaction: High
        
        Importance: Med.
        
        Crosswind #
        
        Satisfaction: Med
        
        Importance: High
      - Braking Performance
        
        minimum noise #
        
        Importance: Low
        
        Satisfaction:
        
        easy to brake on steep descents #
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
        
        not grabby braking in dry condition
        
        braking performance in the rain
    - - More Aero(Less drag) #
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
        
        If you regularly average 30kph or 18mph and faster on your rides, aerodynamics matters a lot and can save you minutes based on how you position yourself on your bike and what gear (wheels, frame, tires) and kit (helmet, jersey, etc.) you use. The chart below summarizes this; the posts on gear and kit (here) and training and technique (here) go into more detail on how to go faster including the role of aerodynamics.
        
        https://intheknowcycling.com/2015/07/10/best-aero-all-around-road-bike-wheels/#Aero
      - Faster acceleration(more responsive)
        # #
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
      - Lighter ( Easier Acceleration and climbing ) #
        (But, as explained above, the weight that matters most is your body weight and how much power you can crank out relative to your weight. Your bike and wheelset weight have little relative effect when accelerating and climbing.- intheknowcycling)
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: Med
    - - pinch flat resistance
    - - Compatibility for reduced tire pressure
        
        Importance: Med
        
        Satisfaction:
      - road shock damping(more forgiving ride)
        
        Importance: Med
        
        Satisfaction:
      - Compatibility for larger volume tire ( >25C ) #
        
        Low-profile rim
        
        Satisfaction:
        
        Importance: Med
        
        high=profile rim
        
        mid-profile rim
- - - - Importance: High
      - Satisfaction: High
  - - - Stability
        
        Handling
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
        
        Crosswind
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: Med
      - Braking Performance
        
        minimum noise
        
        Importance: Low
        
        Satisfaction:
        
        easy to brake on steep descents
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: Med to High
        
        brake well in dry condition
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
        
        braking performance in the rain
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: Med
        
        Ability to keep "cool"
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: Med to High ( compared with carbon wheels )
    - - More Aero(Less drag)
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
      - Faster acceleration(more responsive)
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: High
      - Lighter ( Easier Activation and climbing )
        
        Importance: High
        
        Satisfaction: Med
    - - Compatibility for reduced tire pressure
        
        Importance: Med
        
        Satisfaction:
      - road shock damping(more forgiving ride)
        
        Importance: Med
        
        Satisfaction:
      - Compatibility for larger volume tire ( >25C )
        
        Low-profile rim
        
        Importance: Med
        
        Satisfaction:
        
        high=profile rim
        
        mid-profile rim
    - - pinch flat resistance
- - - - The best carbon aero all-arounders don’t get pushed around by crosswinds, are stiff and comfortable, handle well, and are faster yet as indistinguishably light as the best carbon all-arounds that are 10mm to 20mm shallower. They tick all the same performance criteria boxes (see here) as well or better than the shallower all-arounds. They cost about the same as their shallower siblings from the same brand, which is not cheap for any of them. But, for the serious road cycling enthusiasts who wants the most speed without losing versatility, this category is the new wheelset sweet spot that we should be riding.
- - - - Crosswinds? Not noticeable despite riding in some pretty heavy ones. No steering, leaning, compensation required. I felt the wind on my body but not in my wheels. I kept waiting for some pulsing or pushing sensation in the front wheel but never felt it. I guess I have to look for stronger winds.
      - Too stiff? While I’ve been on stiffer wheels, I couldn’t get these to budge laterally between some narrow gap brake pads either going up 10% + grades or sprinting full on. Maybe a heavier or stronger rider can but I couldn’t.
      - Comfortable? Once figuring out what tires and pressures suited the wheels’ aerodynamics and my weight best (25C front at 85 psi and 23C rear at 95 psi) they were as comfortable as anything I had ever been on.
      - Handling? I navigated these big boys in and out of corners and pacelines with all the control and responsiveness I could ask for.
      - Weight? These 48mm deep front, 56mm deep rear ENVE wheels climbed as well as any 40mm-45mm all-around I’d been on before. Not surprising as they weigh in at 1575 grams on my scale, essentially the same as the shallower best performer 45mm deep Zipp 303 Firecrest (1570g), best value 41mm deep Reynolds Assault SLG (1552g), and most of the other carbon and carbon-alloy all-around wheels in the same depth range I’d previously evaluated (see here for that review). These are weight differences that most enthusiasts can’t discern out on the road.
      - While they didn’t climb like the 150g lighter, shallower (21mm front and 23mm rear depth) Shimano Dura-Ace C24 CL wheels I used going up three mountain gap roads on the Mount Washington Century the previous year, they settled right in to the cadence I wanted to tap out on the climbs and responded well to the changes in grade.
      - The benefits? Speed. Faster than 35-45mm deep carbon, toroid shaped, wide rimmed all-around wheels. No doubt. These and most of the other modern carbon clincher aero bike wheels go faster than shallower all-around wheels.
        
        Nearly all the carbon aero wheels I’ve evaluated for this review will give you more speed. It’s impossible to know whether the ENVE SES 4.5 is faster, the same or slower than any of the others in this deeper all-around category. From looking at the few publicly available wind tunnel tests, the amount of difference between many of them is so small that you, my dear road cycling enthusiast, wouldn’t be able to isolate it out on the road.
      - The latest version of these and all the ENVE SES wheels have a new textured braking surface. I rode the 4.5 with the first generation surface and thought they were great – quiet, comfortable and consistent from the first day I rode them. Knowing they are carbon rims, I didn’t ‘drag’ or hold on to the brakes for long periods going downhill and since I can choose when I ride, I didn’t spend a lot of time on them in the rain. But I found they braked perfectly fine and gave me plenty confidence.
        
        Yes, I did ride them knowing not to drag the brakes, alternating braking front and back on long descents, and giving myself plenty of time to slow in wet conditions. If you try to ride any carbon wheelset like you ride one with an alloy brake track, you are looking for trouble.
        
        And they were totally cool (pun intended) braking on downhills. I checked the rims at the bottom of each of 5 times down my 1+ mile, 8% hill repeat training course one day in the summer and they weren’t even warm.
        
        Do they brake as well as disc brake wheelsets or rim brake wheels with alloy tracks? No, though it seems the gap is considerably narrower versus alloy wheels. Are they one of the best carbon braking tracks I’ve been on? Yup.
        
        Another difference I’ve noticed between the first and current or second generation ENVE brake tracks is the sound they make when you apply the brakes. The last gen put out a barely audible “shhhh” sound, the kind you make when you are trying to quiet a baby. The new generation tracks sound to me like a dentist’s drill while you are under anesthesia. Zing, zing, but not so much as to scare you. While I much prefer the shhhh sound, the drill sound of the new generation isn’t troublesome and nothing like the shriek you hear on some carbon rim brakes.
      - The quality also is first-rate. The first gen brake tracks I rode on the SES 4.5 showed minimal signs of wear after four months. They remained true despite my hitting a major pothole, double flatting and cutting through both tires on one of the first group rides I did with them. Yeah, following some rookie’s wheel. Stupid me.
    - - They didn’t accelerate any better than the others
        
        They didn’t accelerate any better than the others and they may not be as stiff as some of the others. The acceleration is probably determined by the weight of these wheels along with their aero shape. They weren’t worse, they just weren’t any better.
      - they may not be as stiff as some of the others.
    - - Combining two different rim designs into one integrated wheelset may be part of what makes the SES 4.5 perform so consistently well across all criteria. Perhaps you would be better off with the same front and back wheels if your weight was distributed evenly on your bike, or the aerodynamics were the same coming at your front and back wheels, or you turned the back wheel the same way you did the front or any number of other things that make the life of a front and back wheel so different.
        
        Modern wheels have different front and back wheel hubs, spoke counts, spoke configurations and often spokes to deal with the different forces these wheels? If this is the case, then why should the rims be the same on the front and rear wheels if the aerodynamics are different at different places on the bike, especially for a set of “aero” wheels whose purpose is to be more aerodynamic? Duhhhhh!?!?! …. as my daughter says to me when discussing other topics she figured out light years before I did.
        
        As with all the ENVE wheels, they aren’t cheap and you don’t find them discounted often but I certainly think they are worth what you pay for and recommend them enthusiastically. The construction of these wheels is first-rate and ENVE stands behind them with a 5-year warranty, unmatched by other major brands.
  - - - This remain very fast wheels and good in crosswinds. Zipp makes quantitative claims about the % improvement that I can’t verify. But, on the road, I can tell you they are fast, maintain your speed very well and are minimally affected and quite easily managed in heavy crosswinds. They were one of the fastest wheels I’ve ridden in my highly unscientific 2-mile interval training repeats and just barely noticed the wind (or view) coming off the ocean in my high wind crosswind runs
      - My A level, 20mph+, damn-he’s-fast bike club friend Nate summed up their sweet spot well after riding these 404 NSWs when he said: “These would be my pick in a flat road race, crit, TT or solo breakaway but I would opt for the ENVE SES 4.5 in a hillier race.”
      - The hubs are quiet and silky smooth both pedaling and freewheeling with a Dura Ace cassette but annoyingly loud with the SRAM one they came with. Likewise, the wheels ran smoothly with 23C Conti 4KSII rubber but I found them downright buzzy with Zipp’s own 23C Tangente Course tires.
      - The brake track width measured wider than these 23C tires, comfortably in the 105-110% range, best for minimizing drag/maximizing aero performance, i.e. speed. While I’d put a premium on aero with these depth wheels, and aero drag reduction with 23C tires will generally outweigh rolling resistance reduction with 25Cs at the kind of speeds you’d likely ride these wheels, you could run 25C tires at lower pressure to make the ride more comfortable, something where the 404 NSW don’t excel.
      - The stiffness and climbing were also disappointing to both Nate and me. Neither of us are heavy guys but we both noticed that the 404 NSW weren’t terribly stiff and you could get the rear wheel to rub the brake pads if you were rocking side to side when climbing or sprinting. They didn’t climb very well on anything more than a roller.
        
        Perhaps the stiffness and climbing weaknesses come back to the hubs. Zipp seems to change hubs nearly as often as I change cassettes and the Cognition hubs used on all their NSW wheelsets is yet another new hub for Zipp. They don’t engage particularly fast, certainly not as fast as the ENVE or DT Swiss 240 hubs and that affects your ability to keep up with changes in speed or moves in the group and changes in pitch going up a hill. A wider hub flange can also make the wheels stiffer, something you see with good effect on Easton’s latest Echo hub and other new hubs coming out. The rim walls also seemed a bit thinner and easier to depress than the others, perhaps contributing both to less weight and lateral stiffness.
      - While a wheelset this fast is not one you should buy for its braking ability, the 404 NSW certainly do brake extremely well on dry pavement and stay very cool going down steep, long hills. On wet roads, the braking goes from average carbon to as good if not better than any alloy after a couple seconds (I counted on multiple passes), likely after squeezing the water out of their tracks.
  - - - I thought the 404 NSW was pretty good in the crosswinds. Yes, it was affected by them but I found the effect manageable compared to other deep aero wheels I’d ridden, even with my slim arms and meh strength. I had to steer the front wheel back in but I didn’t get blown off my line.
        
        Admittedly, it’s not a fine line – a foot or so either way. But, it’s a line I could keep riding the 404 NSW on even in 15-20mph crosswinds.
  - - - Great lateral stiffness and low weight
        
        1,530g
        
        500g rims
      - noticeably more forgiving than your standard deep aero wheel.
      - You've got two options out of the box: standard clincher with the provided tape, or tubeless, with the provided strip and valve
        https://cdnmos-bikeradar.global.ssl.fastly.net/images/bikes-and-gear/components/wheel-sets/aelolus-xxx-6-review---6-1522351988634-eswcs0ksvsxa-630-354.jpg
      - Braking Performance
        
        Using the supplied SwissStop Black Prince pads, I found the braking to be stronger than normal carbon wheels, but weaker than Zipp NSW and Zipp SES models. The sound, however, is minimal
        
        Testing with Shimano's excellent Dura-Ace 9100 calipers, I was able to one-finger brake down sharp and steep descents. You won't mistake the setup for discs, of course, but it's good for carbon.
      - For me, ride feel is right on par with the latest hoops from ENVE and Zipp in terms of acceleration and handling. Stability in crosswinds is much harder to pin down, but it is noticeable on these wheels. Is it better or worse than ENVE or Zipp? I don't know.
      - Bottom line: I would happily race or ride these any day, especially when using Shimano's excellent 9100 calipers.
      - SPEC
        
        28mm, 47mm, and 60mm rim depths
        
        Rim-brake and disc-brake versions
        
        Clincher and tubular versions
        
        Laser-machined brake track on rim-brake versions
        
        21mm-wide internal width and tubeless compatibility for clinchers
        
        US$2,400 / AU$TBC / £2,000 / €2,400