What are the fastest UCI-legal road wheels? Wind tunnel testing the big-name brands and Chinese contenders

Welcome to the latest edition of Cyclingnews' Labs wind tunnel testing, and the third instalment of what has accidentally become a near-annual aero road wheels test.

If you're not familiar with these testing write-ups, I can only apologise for the hours you're about to spend nerding out, because below you'll find an extremely deep – approx 10,000 words worth – dive into the results from our latest test.

As ever, we were back at the world-renowned cycling-specific wind tunnel at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub, but this time round, we took 16 pairs of the best road bike wheels on the market to see which is the unequivocal aero king.

Aside from the endless tyre swaps required (pray for my thumbs), wheels are a fun thing to test, because the results are largely applicable to most people. Unlike bikes, clothing and helmets, where the real-world difference between two products could vary from user to user based on rider position and body shape, wheels are more or less transferable from the wind tunnel to your bike.

And wheels are an exciting thing to upgrade on your bike. They can make your bike faster, lighter, better handling, nicer to ride, and perhaps most importantly, they make your bike look much cooler.

In recent years, we've seen wheel manufacturers step up their game in offering wheels that are both aero and lightweight. Just five years ago, a 60mm wheel under 1500g was rare, but now anything above 1500g is seen as heavy.

Given you're here, I trust you know the basics; that aero wheels exist at all, their go-faster intentions and that a lightweight wheel is likely better on steeper climbs. After all, this is our third round of wheel testing.

So instead of patronising you with the basics, I'll dive into the wheels we've chosen, the protocol we used to test them, and the all-important results.

But first, allow me a small plug. We have a new YouTube channel, Cyclingnews Tech, which is full of excellent video reviews of road and gravel bikes, most of which we've also tested in the wind tunnel. We will shortly be publishing a behind-the-scenes video from our day in the tunnel, so don't forget to subscribe so it lands in your feed as soon as it goes live.

The wheels

Unlike previous tests, where we've had no real parameters for what constitutes the optimal road wheel, and thus have just gone with aero all-rounders, this time the UCI gave us something to work with.

For the start of the 2026 season, a new rule was introduced stating that anything deeper than 65mm is too fast and thus should be deemed illegal. I won't get into the veracity of those 'too fast' claims, nor their motivations for the rule change, but we chose to set our limit at the same depth.

We asked brands to send the 'fastest UCI-legal wheelset' they had. This was a mix of nominally 'Western' brands, but with a quartet of Chinese brand wheels, courtesy of the kind folks at Panda Podium.

That led to the following list:

• DT Swiss ARC 1100 DICUT
• HUNT 5AM Limitless Ti_UD Carbon Spoke
• Parcours Chrono GT (62/65mm)
• Reserve 57|64 Turbulent Aero
• Roval Rapide CLX III
• Roval Rapide Sprint CLX
• Scope Artech 6.A
• Scribe CORE Ultra 6 (as well as the same wheelset, but with a new aero front hub)
• Scribe Élan Ultra 6 (with the OSL8 crinkled spokes)
• Syncros Capital SL Aero 60
• Vision Metron 60 RS
• CRW Works Ultimo 6060
• Farsports EVO C6
• Pertual ACME 45/62

And finally, as a lightweight what's-the-difference comparison, the incredibly light Arcaris 8848 wheelset, weighing just 904g on our scales.

For clarity, we tried to get hold of the new Enve wheels spotted at the Tour de France, but the brand was unable to get us a set in time. Apparently they'd all gone to some guy called Tadej who had an important race on or something.

We also hoped to test the new Black Inc Hyper 62. We had the wheels, but we failed to get hold of a Shimano freehub body for them. Somehow none of the other 15 wheelsets had an equivalent freehub design that could be swapped over. They're one of a few that use pawls instead of the more common star ratchet.

And we asked nicely for a pair of Shimano's new Dura-Ace wheels, but sadly no stock was available as our test took place before they launched.

Disclaimer

Before we get into the details of the test, a brief interlude to say this article features paid placement from Argon 18, with the loan of the Nitrogen Pro bike, and Continental with the loan of the GP5000 S TR tyres. I personally approved their involvement after concluding it wouldn't offer undue bias, nor perception thereof, to the outcome of the test.

As ever, we paid the standard commercial rate for the hire of the wind tunnel, and the sole purpose of this test was creating impartial data for Cyclingnews readers. Without your support, these tests would not happen, and so ensuring they remain impartial is key to their continued success.

Protocol & confidence

As with previous tests, we took the wheels to the cycling wind tunnel at Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub. The wind tunnel gave us the aero data, and separately we weighed each wheelset and took dozens of measurements alongside.

For the aero testing, each wheelset was mounted to the same bike: an Argon 18 Nitrogen Pro (in size M). Our stipulation here was to use a bike that had no affinity to any of the wheel brands in question, and Argon 18 was a good match, especially with the Nitrogen Pro's aerodynamic intentions.

A Specialized Tarmac, for example, would have been designed in conjunction with the Roval wheels and could, in turn, create an unfair advantage to those wheels. Likewise Cervélo with Reserve, and so on. Argon 18 does make a modified version of Scope's wheels that it claims work better with the Nitrogen Pro frame, but we insisted on testing the off-the-shelf Artech 6.A for fairness.

We tested in a bike-only configuration, rather than with a rider. This is because the error margin that a real rider adds to the equation is bigger than the differences we expected to find. By testing without a rider, we could be much more confident that the differences being found were due to the thing we're trying to test.

To quantify the error margin, we tested the Scope Artech 6.A at the start of the day, then immediately again afterwards, and then again at the end of the day, having taken the tyres off and putting them on again. By calculating the maximum difference between two points in those tests, our error margin equates to +/- 0.27w.

Each wheelset was tested at a wind speed of 40km/h, with wheels spinning at the same speed.

Every wheel was fitted with Continental's GP5000 S TR. Crucially, we tested each wheelset with two different tyre sizes (28mm and 30mm), and we always kept the front tyre on the front and the rear tyre on the rear.

We wanted to ensure that the same tyre (the exact tyre, not just the same model) was tested on every wheel, to remove any potential for different manufacturing tolerances from tyre to tyre affecting the results. We also wanted to avoid 10 minutes of downtime between each test as we swapped the tyre onto the next wheelset, so by adding in a 30mm test to the mix too, we could swap the 30mm tyres onto Wheelset B, while the 28s were being tested on Wheelset A. And then swap the 28s onto Wheelset C while the 30s were being tested on Wheelset B, and so on. This reduced downtime and gave us a second stream of data to boot.

Given the tyres were all box fresh, Will even brought some 120 grit along and sanded them smooth in the morning before we kicked off to remove the release ridge in the centre, and any rough surface was worn down to a consistent smoothness by the powered rollers during the initial zeroing process. We also ensured the same cassette (Shimano 105, 11-34) and rotors (Shimano) were used on every wheelset too.

Each wheel-tyre combo was tested at seven yaw angles: -15, -10, -5, 0, +5, +10 and +15 degrees. Each capture was performed in a sweep in the same direction (negative to positive) for consistency.

With more time, I'd perhaps go more granular here, and to a wider angle, to try and uncover the point at which wheels begin to sail. It's also possible to capture in a moving sweep and see this in real time, but it's much harder to extract an average to establish a best-to-worst ranking.

We also quantified price to help you understand the cost associated with the respective wattage saving. Coupled with our wind tunnel helmet test, our wind tunnel aero bikes test, our tyre tests and all of the upcoming Cyclingnews Labs tests we've got in planning, we want to help our readers decide where to spend their money first to get… well, faster!

And finally, if you'll permit me a moment to boast: In all, we captured in excess of 1,000 data points. This includes 14 CdA values per wheelset, as well as the following list of secondary information.

• Price
• Hooked (yes / no)
• Claimed weight
• Front wheel weight
• Rear wheel weight
• Total weight
• Spoke count front
• Spoke count rear
• Spoke material
• Surface texture
• Taped or blind rims
• Internal v external nipples
• Internal width front
• Internal width rear
• External width front
• External width rear
• Front tyre width (at three points, averaged)
• Rear tyre width (at three points, averaged)

Additional notes

Cyclingnews does not claim that this data is the final word on the aerodynamic performance of the wheels featured, but rather an additional stream of independent, unbiased testing and information for our readers.

The results are simply representative of our testing day and the protocol we used. We hope that being clear about our method and our protocol allows readers to appreciate the data while also understanding the bigger picture of the metrics that affect performance.

We understand that others may achieve different results with different protocols, and that some wheels in this test were designed around different tyre sizes, models, or a specific bike. Where we have information to this end, we will include it.

For simplicity, we will report raw CdA data as it comes out of the wind tunnel software; all data is subject to our error margin, and we will make this clear at important points throughout.

When averaging the CdA from the seven yaw angles, we have weighted according to the 2018 research paper by Cannondale's Nathan Barry. This calculates the likelihood of experiencing each yaw angle at given speeds in the real world and applies an appropriate weighting to each CdA measurement, and thus doing so appropriately provides a more accurate real-world interpretation of which wheelset will actually make you faster.

In layman's terms, as you travel faster, you're more likely to experience low yaw (wind head-on) than high yaw (crosswind), simply by virtue of the speed of your movement through the air. There are many different schools of thought on the correct way to weight each point, but we've used Barry's method for the past two years so will continue to use it for the foreseeable future.

Using these averages, we've then calculated to solve for power (watts) at the tested speeds. These calculations use a constant air density of 1.2kg/m³, and do not factor in additional losses such as drivetrain friction or rolling resistance.

Cyclingnews also understands that there is more to a wheelset's performance than aerodynamics. Weight, handling and stability are key for ride quality, while serviceability, tyre compatibility and retention, and how easy it is to get the tyres on and off are also important. This context should not be ignored when viewing the results below.

Results

For the results, I have calculated the power required to overcome the aerodynamic drag for each product at 40km/h. This figure is comically low compared to what you'll be used to seeing on your head unit, as there's no rider on the bike, but for comparison purposes, it's an accurate and comprehensible way to showcase the results.

I will then show the 'watts saved' vs the lightweight Arcaris 8848 shallow wheelset, as a means to help you understand what you stand to gain if you were to make the same swap.

That's your podium, and notably they are all with 28mm tyres. Satisfyingly, the next three most aero were the same three wheels again, but with the 30mm tyres, albeit Hunt in fourth, Scope in fifth, and Reserve in sixth.

I will go into more detail about each product individually below, but for now, allow me to let the graphs do the heavy lifting.

Below, I've got the raw CdA from each wheelset, presented at each yaw point. I've split out 28mm tyres and 30mm tyres, but as we'll learn later on, it's not always the case that narrower is faster. It's a higgledy mess of purple lines, but if you hover (click if on mobile) on the wheelset you want to see in the legend at the top, it'll highlight it and fade out the others.

For clarity, the line that sits at the top in the two graphs above, away from the others, is the shallow Arcaris 8848 wheelset. The greater the CdA, the more aerodynamic drag is created, essentially confirming what we already know: shallow wheels are slower. They come into their own on steep climbs, though, of course.

Overall rankings

Next up, let's look at the overall rankings.

Each wheelset x tyre size combo is listed, with the calculated power required to overcome the aerodynamic drag that they (and the bike they're mounted on) create. Lower drag means less power is required to travel the same speed, and thus is the more aerodynamic product.

Aero vs weight vs price

Now for some deeper analysis, and I'll start where I think most people will start: a comparison of aero vs weight, and then price, and then a combined chart with aero, weight and price in one place. Spoiler alert: there's not much correlation to be found.

Starting with the exact weights of each wheelset in order.

An outright win for the shallow Arcaris 8848, of course, but the Chinese duo of CRW and Pertual claw back some kudos with second and fourth, respectively. Hunt's third place here is the standout performance though, given the 5AM was also top of the aero charts above.

For the next few graphs, I've removed the shallow wheelset from the graphs as they are an obvious outlier that skews the results. We're primarily looking for trends in aero wheels here.

There's an ever-so-slight positive correlation between aero and weight, as well as between aero and price, but the spread of data is so broad in both cases that I don't think anyone can confidently assume that spending more will ensure they get a more aerodynamic product.

And things are no clearer when you factor in weight, too. The Hunt wheels are in the lower half of the price bracket, the second lightest in weight (excl. Arcaris), and most aero on test. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Visions are the 3rd most expensive, bottom half of the aero table, and bottom half of the weight table.

There's just no guarantee that spending more gets you a faster product.

Is narrower faster?

Smaller tyres have less of a frontal area, and given that CdA factors in 'Area' (the 'A' portion of CdA, or essentially an item's size), surely narrower tyres are faster... right?

Let's take a look.

Below, I'll start by looking at the aero data for each wheelset x tyre combo, coupling the 28mm and 30mm results together to allow an easy at-a-glance comparison.

For reference, the 'Cd' portion of CdA is the coefficient of drag, or how easily air passes over an item's surface.

Incredibly, nine of the 16 wheelsets (56%) actually returned a better aero performance with the wider (30mm) GP5000 S TR tyre than with the 28mm equivalent.

This is probably because most of them were designed to accommodate the wider tyre, and thus the airflow from tyre to rim was a smoother transition.

Given we know that wider tyres can be run at lower pressures, and thus offer benefits to rolling resistance over rough ground, it's reassuring to know that doesn't necessarily come at an aero loss too. We've already shown that 40mm tyres are faster for most people even despite an aero detriment, but I wonder where the limit is. If a brand can make a wheel work better with a 30mm than a 28mm, can they make 40mm faster than 30mm? What about 50mm or 60mm?

Do bear in mind that all the wheels besides the Syncros are hooked, and so the exact dimensions of the hooks will have some bearing on the measurable internal width with the callipers we had to hand.

Most brands publish the above information, but in the interest of being thorough, we wanted to measure the internal and external width of each rim too.

It's notable how some wheels (Syncros, Roval, Reserve, Hunt) have individual front- and rear- dimensions, whereas others are equal. Of course, the measurement might be a few tenths of a mm out, showing a discrepancy between front and back, but we've shared the data as we measured it.

And the above graph shows every tyre width as measured before it went into the tunnel. We measured each at three equidistant points around the tyre and took an average.

Using the two graphs above, and of course the aero results higher up, you can infer how tyres interact with the rim. If the front tyre is wider or narrower than the rim, and whether the '105% rule' shows itself.

Specifically, Silca's Rule of 105 says that a "rim must be at least 105% the width of the tire if you have any chance of re-capturing airflow from the tire and controlling it."

I've done that below, calculating the ratio between the external width of the front rim and the measured tyre width, and plotting that against the aero performance.

There's no obvious trend showing wheels over 105% are suddenly more aero than those below 105%, but it is perhaps notable that first, second and third place (Hunt, Reserve and Scope) are all very close to that 105% mark, at 107%, 107% and 103% respectively.

And to wrap up this section and conclude without doubt that narrower tyres aren't guaranteed to be more aerodynamic. The below graph shows the correlation (or lack thereof) between the front tyre's measured width and how the wheelset performed in the wind tunnel.

Carbon spokes vs steel

The big topic of discussion lately is carbon spokes vs steel spokes. A wind tunnel test can't answer any questions around safety, but we can at least dig into how they affect the aero and weight credentials of their respective wheelset, so that's what we'll do below.

Although there's a bit of crossover, there is a clear distinction between the weights of carbon-spoked wheels and steel.

There's no obvious correlation between carbon spokes and aero performance, but Hunt's logic is that since carbon is stiffer and stronger, fewer of them are needed, and that aids both their aerodynamics and their weight. The 5AM wheelset feature just 15 spokes up front and 18 at the rear.

That doesn't bear out in all cases, though. Pertual's Acme 45/62 have just 16 both front and rear, and they were one of the slowest on test.

The other question that crossed my mind when putting this feature together is whether internal (hidden) spokes are faster than external. It's fairly well accepted that hidden nipples are faster, all else being equal, but our data showed no correlation, presumably a result of a too-small sample size with too many different rim shapes and depths.

Individual results

To order this section, I'll work my way down the rankings from fastest to slowest, grouping together results from 28mm and 30mm as I go, rather than duplicating a load of the details.

HUNT 5AM Limitless Ti_UD Carbon Spoke

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An impressive result for Hunt, whose wheels not only land at the top of the tree as well as the individual tables if we were to split 28mm and 30mm tyres into separate tests, but they're also some of the lightest on test.

We've all heard the saying "fast, light, cheap - pick two," but Hunt challenges that too. The 5AM, at £1999, are £1840 less than the most expensive pair here. Cheaper models do exist, especially if you look at the Chinese cohort, but by our data, Hunt nailed the brief here.

One of the standout things with the Hunt wheels is their minimal spoke count. Carbon spokes are stiffer and stronger, so Hunt says you don't need as many to make a wheel of equal ride quality and power transfer. Fewer things getting buffeted around by the wind is logically less draggy, and it's also lighter, so a win-win.

Reserve 57|64 Turbulent Aero

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My big takeaway about the Reserve wheels is that the 57 | 64 are a darn sight easier to get tyres on to and off of than the 52 | 63 we tested last time. Their hooked rim is accompanied by a ridge that locks the tyre into place on the bead for safety, and oh boy were they tough to unseat last time, but the update has seemingly improved this.

Also, when we first tested wheels in the wind tunnel in 2023, Reserve's 65 | 50 were slowest on test. To have turned that around and been within the error margin of the win is a huge credit to the brand.

Scope Artech 6.A

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Scope's Artech 6.A won our test last time around and are within the error margin of victory this time, which is similarly impressive to the Hunt result given their weight is 5th best at 1307g.

The 'thing' with Scope, however, is they're pretty darn pricey compared to the others here. At £3,498, they're the second most expensive on test. Those fishscales do look cool though.

I would like to test the standard Artech 6 at some point, since we've twice now tested the 6.A, which is technically an all-road wheel, albeit designed more around wider tyres.

Syncros Capital SL Aero 60

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The runner-up in our last test, the Capital SL Aero 60 wheels are the best-of-the-rest here, in seventh place in the combined table (Hunt, Reserve and Scope claimed the podium with 28mm tyres and then also swept up fourth, fifth and sixth with 30mm tyres).

Interestingly, they were actually faster with the 30mm tyres than 28mm, which might seem unusual but is actually more common among the wheels we tested than the other way around.

Their biggest standout feature is the moulded spokes, which help keep their weight down and seemingly help their aero performance too. But with carbon spokes becoming a more common solution, it's now possible to get lighter wheels without the risk of writing off the whole wheel with a broken spoke.

They're also the most expensive on test, more than three times the price of others here.

DT Swiss ARC 1100 DICUT

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My standout impression of the DT Swiss Arc 1100 is that they're incredibly narrow. They look narrow, with a sharper V-shaped leading edge to the rim, rather than the more U-shaped profile we've become accustomed to in recent years. They also measure up narrower than all others on test, at an external rim width of 28.29mm up front.

Roval Rapide Sprint CLX

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Like the Hunt wheels up top, the Roval Rapide Sprint CLX are a 'mullet' wheel, with a deeper wheel at the front and a shallower wheel at the back. Since airflow is cleanest at the front of the bike, it makes sense to put the more aero product there, and then use a shallower wheel at the back, where aero differences are less significant, and enjoy the weight savings that it offers.

The biggest standout here is that despite having an average internal- and external width, both Roval wheels shaped the tyres narrower compared to everyone else. The 28mm tyre blew up here to 28.65mm (smaller than all others on test) while the 30mm measured at 30.43mm (only the Rapide CLX III was narrower). In both cases, that's almost 2mm narrower than the Reserve wheels, although I suppose in Specialized's defence, it is at least the most accurate reflection of what's written on the sidewall of the tyre.

Scribe Élan Ultra 6 (OSL8)

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The Élan wheel from Northern Irish brand Scribe is famous for one thing... crinkled spokes. They are carbon, aero-bladed, and remind me of my sister's hair in the '90s.

Scribe says the Core Ultra 6 (below) is actually the more aero product, but our data puts them really close, with the Élan edging ahead (albeit within the error margin of the test). Given these are over 200g lighter, though, they're probably doing enough to justify their £500 higher price.

Scribe CORE Ultra 6

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Alongside the Élan, the Core Ultra 6 is the cheaper, more 'basic' wheelset with steel, J-bend spokes (although the nipples are hidden inside the rim).

We were also sent an extra front wheel with a new hub that the Scribe team had developed for its pro athletes, designed to work well at lower yaw. In our test, the differences - if any - were well within the margin of the test and therefore indistinguishable.

In fact, with both sets of tyres, the CdA was exactly the same (measured to four significant figures) no matter if we used the aero hub or the standard hub.

Parcours Chrono GT (62/65mm)

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Parcours' Chrono GT are perhaps undersold by sitting in the bottom half of our results here (and it must be said that they're still only 1.55w behind Hunt).

But one of the interesting claims made by the British brand is that due to the vibration-absorbent nature of the carbon being used, they are equivalent (in comfort terms) to another wheel running 10-15psi lower tyre pressure.

Vision Metron 60 RS CS Edition

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The price here is inflated somewhat because we were sent the 'CS' edition, with silver hubs and CeramicSpeed bearings. A similar aero performance will likely come from the cheaper Metron RS 60 too.

Regardless, a middling performance from Vision, whose wheels have put in a strong showing in our two previous tests.

Roval Rapide CLX III

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The Rapide CLX III is one of the shallower wheels in this test (ignoring the Arcaris), at 51mm up front. They are the wheels you get if you buy the new Tarmac SL9, and as I mentioned above with the Sprints, they shape tyres quite small in comparison to everything else here.

They still have the wider, shallower front profile with a deeper, narrower rear, and the 33.14mm wide front (as measured) is the second widest in the test.

Pertual ACME 45/62

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Certainly the weirdest-looking wheels in the test, the Pertual ACME 45/62 wheels have a wavy profile not unlike Princeton or Zipp, where the depth undulates between 45mm at its shallowest and 62mm at its deepest.

Aerodynamically, they were slowest on test with the 28mm tyre, but they are impressively light at 1236g.

CRW Works Ultimo 6060

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The CRW Ultimo 6060 is the second of our Chinese cohort, and despite an aero performance that's lacking, the fact that they're only 2 watts behind the Hunts, their 1156g weight, and their sub £1800 price is an impressive combination that flips the one-dimensional aero table on its head.

Farsports EVO C6

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The Farsports Evo 6 are another that might be disappointed in the aero result, but in a similar vein to the CRW wheels above, when you consider they're around a quarter of the price of the most expensive on test, it's hard to be disappointed with a 2.89w deficit.

Arcaris 8848

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And finally, our 'comparison' wheelset. The Arcaris 8848 with a claimed weight of 'from 884.8g' (hence the name). We had the mid-range Arcaris Pro, which is priced at $1,899 (or £1425 based on today's rates).

They weighed an impressive 907g and were 6.39w (28mm) and 6.61w (30mm) slower than the Hunt wheels.