Minilite vs Apollo/ 8 spoke

[BobW13]

Minilites are considerably cheaper than Caterham Apollo or 8 spoke wheels. I guess they are also considerably heavier?

How costly would this extra unsprung weight be in terms of performance (on track)?

Has anyone done a direct comparison?

Cheers

Bob

[pikeyboy]

Personally without wanting to be patronising I don't think you'd notice the difference. Most people would struggle to drive a enough laps back to back at a sufficiently consistent lap time in order to work out how much difference there would be.

[sdio]

I have the 13inch minilight and 8 spoke and the minilight seem to be 200gr heavier.

[BobW13]

Thanks guys. JBW inform me the Minilite is 6kg. I think the Apollo is 4.something?

So are we saying if I lose a place by 0.001sec I can or cannot blame it on the Minilites..?!

[framerateuk]

I have some Compomotive CXRs which are about 5KG if you want another option.

I have the Apollo Wheels with ZZS tyres and CR500s on the CXRs. The tyre choice is far more noticeable than anything else!

[bcr5784]

framerateuk said:

I have some Compomotive CXRs which are about 5KG if you want another option.

I have the Apollo Wheels with ZZS tyres and CR500s on the CXRs. The tyre choice is far more noticeable than anything else!

Before getting too pananoid about wheel weights, I'd look into tyre weights. Different brands can easily be 2 or more Kg different. Saving a couple of kg on the tyre and another 2 on the wheel is obviously a "GOOD THING" - but not if the tyre is crap.

[framerateuk]

The ZZS are a good bit heavier than the CR500. The sidewall is harder too.

Makes the ride a bit bumpier on the road, but has way more grip on the track.

[Equus]

Definitely agree that most non-racers won't notice the difference, but the old rule of thumb used to be that every kilogram of unsprung, rotational inertia is worth about 10 kilos of sprung, non-rotating weight, on the track.

[BobW13]

Equus, that was my concern. I will be racing and the three rims stated are the only ones allowed. The control tyre is A048.

Think I will get a set of Minilites as road going back up and use my Apollos for racing.

Thanks all for your input.

[mike150]

framerateuk said:

The ZZS are a good bit heavier than the CR500. The sidewall is harder too.

Makes the ride a bit bumpier on the road, but has way more grip on the track.

I had 15" with CR500 and now 13" with ZZS's and I haven't had them on track but I do feel the better rubber of the ZZS the tyre is definitely heavy, the CR500, while an old design and not a great gripper is a very light tyre as it's Kevlar belted and it has a soft sidewall.