I worked as head mechanic in a bike shop back in the early/mid 90’s in Connecticut. We were one of, if not the first shop to carry the Rev X wheels. The owner of the shop was friends with the guy that owned Spinergy iirc. They were based nearby and if I recall, he worked at Cannondale (also local) before starting Spinergy. I sold tons of these wheels back then. Also, fun retro stuff, like Mavic Zap electronic shifters. Ah, the memories.
I mechanicked on a race team that used Spinergy RevX wheels as their 'go fast' wheels, back in the day. They had a nasty habit of separating at the spoke/'rim' interface, which is why they had those natty little rivets just there, but they didn't help anyway. Seeing your team's wheels disintegrate during sprints, as the wheel split in two, wasn't a fun experience after the first time. The riders refused to ride on them after a while, and we went back to 28 spoke delta-pattern rim standard wheels.
Around 1980, my LBS in Green Bay WI had a frame hanging on the wall from an unknown company called "Trek": sport touring geometry, Columbus tubing. They built it up for me with Shimano 600. I loved that bike. What I remember about the 600 group was the sprocket cluster on the rear hub - they called it a cassette, but it was unlike a modern cassette. Would enjoy seeing you dissect one in a future video...
I have ridden those spinergy wheels, oh boy how wobbly they where in comparison to modern carbon fibre wheels 😂 but back then they felt comfortable vs alloy wheels, truly bizarre feeling. I sell them quickly because I was concerned of using them on not so great roads. After all interesting experience 😅
I bought my wife a custom Seven titanium bike in 1998 with 650 Spinergy wheels. We still have the wheels and they look like new. However, we retired them several years out of safety concerns. Perhaps I will put them back on her lovely bike and submit it to the bike vault and hope that Alex is ringing the bell that day!
Please get your historical facts right. Derailleur gears were invented and used (called the gradient gear) in the 1890s and derailleurs were widely used (by cyclo-tourists) right through from then. In fact the amateur riders in the Tour de France (no fixed wheel rules for them!) so far outran the professionals on the mountain stages that the organizers gave up and allowed all riders to use derailleurs in 1936. And there was even one rider, Lucien Petit-Breton, who successfully for a couple of years in 1912-1913 used Sturmey-Archer hub gears. Scotford Lawrence Historical Advisor The National Cycle Museum
I started racing around when Spinergy took off - always thought they were the coolest and a “must have” when my “turning pro” dreams were still alive, lol!
Suntour Superbe Pro group was so nice. Their sidepull brakes were the most beautiful brakes ever made in my book. And where would we be without Suntour and Regina freewheels?
The Spinergy wheels were solid and the danger was way overblown. The failures were due to damage. I have a set of the 26” mtb ones with lots of miles and they are still rock solid with no cracks.
Some very cool retro gear to look at would be Shimano dura ace ax road group and dura ace 10 track group. My first ever custom road bike in the early to mid 80's was Tange Aero tubing and ax group.
I'm continuing to use some Rev-X's for special events. They are still my fastest and most comfortable wheels. I consistently out-roll all of the modern deep dish rims. Yes, they are squirrelly when out of the saddle or in crit type corners, but for cruising or TT they are great. That UCI rule that they failed was not about strength but their failure mode, i.e. when broken they would not stay in one piece. The rule was pushed on the UCI by Mavic who were just trying to eliminate some competition.
I had my Rev-Xs from 1997-2004. At their introduction they were deemed the most aero wheel out there (faster than Zipp's at that point). They were heavy, but most everything else was too (outside of super expensive Lightweight wheels). I never found them to be weak, and only retired them after a crash that saw two of the blades on the front wheel take a little bit of damage (it still didn't break through). I believe I sold the rear wheel of the set after that.
Perfect timing, I got up this morning and grabbed a random Bicycling magzine from a stack to read through....one of the features was "The radical new technology of this years Tour De France" ...1990....I bought this magazine new, I'm that old.
Great video! Twenty five years ago, I bought a very cool used Trek 2300 Composite Competition. It was built with carbon top/down/seat tubes fitted to aluminum lugs and stays. It had Shimano 600 components which still shift very smoothly with little maintenance done over the years. The previous owner had tricked this bike out with Scott arrow bars AND Spinergy RevX wheels for Duathlon/Triathlon. Still looks like an awesome bike between the frame and wheels. And probably the smoothest overall bike I've ever ridden. Ollie, if you want to be cool like Alex, I would be willing to part with the Spinergys as I don't do the multisport events anymore. Let me know! 😁
105 is clearly no longer the "groupset of the people" so it's nonsense to keep calling it that anymore. 105 up to R7000 could be bought in any config, disc or different rim brake options, braze on or bolt on front derailleur, to fit any bike of any age for reasonable money. The last update doubled in price making it too expensive to be "for the people", but more importantly it fits far less bikes. If you can't get any options to fit it to a great frame you've had that's only about 5 years or more old, then it's clearly not. I actually fitted R7000 on my modernised '84 steel bike. Its a beautiful groupset and I love it. But for no amount of money could I have fitted the latest 105 because it has to have internal routing for the batteries, disk brake only, and no clamp-on front derailleur option making it impossible to retro fit to vast amount of great bike frames out there.
You guys! If you've never raced with clips and straps, friction down tube shifters and also the terror of braking with campagnolo delta brakes in the wet (in fact braking full stop😂) in a race situation you've not lived! In the same way that those before me rode heavy HEAVY bikes and even worse componentry. Then there's the clothing.....🤦🏼♂️
Spinergy for me is still the most beautiful wheels ever made for road bike. I am trying to buy it again for my bike in Belgium and Nederlands, still some of them in the market. I had, that time, more than 95kg and they support everything in style here in Portugal. No issues at all, and i used everyday in all weather conditions.. No maintenance needed, just clean and use as much as you can. Now maybe I will buy for a new bike the Xentis. Please do a test with different brands. Aerocomposites look good too. TIOGA disk drive from John Tomas was a spectacular one also; and Sugino. I prefer this type of wheels, expensive but beautiful and `no maintenance needed`. Rgds ( PS: if Spinergy build them again I will buy them for sure, and not only me, but a lot of fans of Spinergy X-REV!!!)
Although technically true that the Colnago Concept introduced in 1986 was the first use of carbon fiber in a frame, an argument can be made that the Kestral 4000 introduced only a few months later is a far better early example of carbon fiber frame construction. The 4000 frame was made totally of monocoque molded carbon fiber construction. I rode this bike in the UK in 1987. Being extremely aerodynamic at the time and equipped with bladed spokes that I imported from the United States, the bike was extremely aerodynamic. The Brits loved these spokes and I was able to sell many hundreds for twice what I paid. I also used the Greg Lemond Aero Bars, which he used to beat Laurant Fignon by eight seconds in the 1989 Tour De France. It's been said that he would have lost to Fignon had he not been using these bars. Needless to say, even at 50+ at the time, I held my own in the two-to-three-time trials I rode per week. What great memories!
My dad has a pair of spinergy rev x on his 1st gen Colnago C40, complete in yellow. Ala Casino cycling team of the late 90s. Even today it’s a stunning bike. Back then it was the ultimate drool over!
I watched a crit race in downtown Burlington, Vermont in 1998 or 1999, and I saw a Spinergy wheel collapse while a rider was out of the saddle, climbing a hill rather aggressively. He took a number of riders down with him.
Hi guys. A question. I want to fit wider tyres to my son's giant Contend SL1 rim brake bike. it came with 25mm tyres. I can get a Schwalbe Pro one 30mm on the rims and in the frame, leaving a gap beneath the calipers but. This only leaves a 3mm gap. Is this OK? Is there a minimum gap there should be between the calipers and the tyre?
How I remember it is that back when the Spinergy wheels were released the rumour was that they were about as air as 32 spoke box section rims. When the blades are horizontal they aren't cutting through the air much. The Spinergy do look cool, but the Specialized trispoke was suppose to be far more aerodynamic than the Spinergy, well that is what the rumour was at the time. But Specialized trispoke were only used for TT and not for anything else, they were heavy and had no spring in them. Anyway I stress that that's how I remember it.
The RevX wheels had a tendency to fail at the spoke/rim interface. Once one spoke cracked, the change in load led to a rapid failure of the remaining spokes (thus the "exploding" wheel), resulting in some serious rider injuries. Spinergy attempted to address this by adding rivets to later versions (see at 7:40 in the video), but they just proved to be stress concentrators and make things worse.
I bought Spinergy blade wheels on my mountain bike. I was quite skeptical that they would be durable, but my bike shop assured me they were designed to be tough. I broke them within weeks. Cracked rim. I took them in for warranty repairs and they were sent off to Spinergy. What I got in return was their flexible spoke wheels that required a special aluminum spoke tool to adjust and constant adjustment. I guess they had a lot of issues with the carbon fiber blades for mountain bikes and quickly discontinued them.
I think it was 1997 mavic had a electronic derailleur the mavic helium wheels Campagnolo had shamal aluminium aero wheels End more colnago ferrari collaboration
Regarding Spinergy bladed spokes, Alec and Billie's report of squirrel fatalities is distressing, but not so much as the thought of all the cyclists set to lose fingers and noses should there be a crash involving them.
I grew up using the Shimano 600 series. It was great! I also had a Huret Duopar rear derailleur in titanium, which was the bee's knees at its time (mid 80s). Silky smooth shifting, wide range for a touring bike I had. Bike was stolen. I'm still sore about it.
@@gcntech Eventually, yes. The stolen bike was one I had built up myself using a Klein Performance frame. Since then, I have built myself an assortment of bikes over the years.
The spinnergy rev x were the worst wheelset i owned because they defected a lot when you were out of the saddle and my rear wheel started to delaminate
Shimano 600 had terrible shifting. The derailleur was fundamentally flawed. Suntour was 10x better. If saving money, most rode a mix of parts. Groupsets weren't really a thing yet, except for all Campy. And Kestrel was the first modern carbon bike, the one everybody copied.
Yup. My first serious road bike ran a strange mongrel groupset with a little Campagnolo here, a little Shimano there, and a Suntour Cyclone rear mech and Superbe pedals.
They did not mention the 2007 COLNAGO FERRARI 60TH EDITION Carbon bike. Also, the Spinergy REV-X wheels were heavy, and sketchy in cross-winds, but very fast and strong (I was a legal bicycle messenger in San Francisco for ten years) I rode a pair daily and raced on them for years. I also had them repaired with industrial-strength glue (San Francisco has very bad roads).
Peugeot had the Fibre Carbone in 1983. PY10FC on sale to the public. 1988 Corima carbon rims. I've got a Shimano 600 Arabesque set. Simplex gears via derailleur. 1935 Claud Butler catalogue. Cyclo 3 speed togglechain derailleur in 1936 catalogue. I have a bike with this. Sack your researchers.
The Campagnolo Cambio Corsa is pretty incredible. Any chance of getting someone to demo it?? There are various videos of it in action. Might be fun to look at the Vittoria Margherita or Super Champion Osgear too.
Another iconic wheeset is the Camapgnolo Shamal (it's a shame they abused the name for their actual Shamal wheelset). I still use my Shamal HPW Titanium wheelset (front 12/ rear 16 spokes and the silver 41mm deep rims) on my winter/summer bad weather bike (a tt bike based on a Giant CFR Expert Series). In combination with black swissstop brake pads they seem to last forever.
I use to own a pair of rev x wheels years ago ,when you were motoring along they sounded incredible,you got a real sense of speed & danger even just being on a flat , Back then I was angry a branch went into spokes and took chunks out ,now I think the branch did me favour , I wouldn’t ride rev x now not with so many good carbon wheels on the market.
