Flo Wheel - Initial Thoughts

I first stumbled upon Flo Wheels while visiting a particular triathlon forum and it seemed like a whole lot of chatter about this particular new start up company. Actually I stumbled on the name of Flo just as they were about to process their first order of wheels. At that very time I just purchased my first TT bike and was looking at various wheel options. Sure, I was coveting those Zipp Firecrest 404's, but the price was just too far out for me to justify for not competing. Even the HED Jet 6 carbon/aluminum clincher set was just too far out of my price range.

There were a number of other worthy deep carbon rims available that were in the lower price range, but most of these were all carbon and I wasn't quite sure that I wanted to go that route just yet. The Flo wheels are an aluminum clincher rim that has a wide toroidal carbon fairing. That would allow me to switch the wheels to other bikes faster without having to swap out brake pads and also not fret much about heavier braking on mountain descents or braking in the rain or with wet roads. Those are not huge issues, but having the aluminum brake track was just something I preferred at the moment. Another attribute that caught my attention is the 23mm rim cross section and the wheels are built up Sapim CX-Ray spokes. They also have a wide variety of decal color combinations including the currently popular ghosted or stealthy look, which I liked. The Flo Vortex hubs also seem to be very solid and can be ordered with either steel or ceramic bearings. I chose steel. They also provided skewers and rim strips.

I ended up joining in at the tail end of the second of their group orders and what impressed me was how responsive both Jon and Chris were to answer my questions via email at a point when I know was a very busy time as the shipment of wheels had just arrived. There were a lot of very anxious buyers waiting for their new sets of Flo wheels and I could tell by their posts on Facebook with the shipment that arrived they had a lot of work ahead.

I received my wheels yesterday and I am anxious to give them a try, but unfortunately I will have to wait until later before I can give my impression of how the wheels respond out on the road. I  have already seen a lot of favorable comments and hopefully I will be able to add some more in the weeks to come, but for now I do like what came out of the box yesterday. My pick was the Flo 60's with the stealth decals. 

Once the new Michelin Pro4 23mm tires come in from Probike Kit I will get these puppies mounted to the Felt B10 and get some more pictures up on this post.

Flo - Flo Wheels