For the past year Sonja and I have been sharing a Powertap wheel. It really was not that big of a hassle because it was the wireless version so we just ordered a few extra mounts and were good to go. That is unless we both wanted to use it on the same day. Or the same ride. Or I was in a hurry to get to work and didn't take the time to transfer the wheel from her bike to mine. We rarely butted heads over the wheel until the ever so uncoachable Sonja hired Bill Gros to be her coach. (I'm sorry, Bill.) Now he was asking her to do specific power workouts and such and interfering with my wheel use. There was only one solution.
I looked at SRM's (just too expensive), Quarks (do not come in a compact version, yet), and all sorts of Powertap wheels and decided on the above: Williams Cycling 38 full carbon clinchers. I wanted a wheel that could withstand training, yet be good enough to race if I wanted. I've got a set of Williams 50 full carbon clinchers (they don't make this particular wheel anymore) and love them (even won the MABRA Cat 3 TT championship on them) so going with another Williams wheel was a no-brainer for me. I've used my 50's in everything from road races, crits, wet weather, training rides, and TT's and they rock. (The only other wheels that I've had this much luck with are my Rolf Vigors.) Besides Rachel Lloyd, my favorite bike racer, uses them and I would just love some of her fast.
I took the money that I demanded from Sonja as a buy-out on our shared wheel, pooled together my birthday and Christmas money, and ordered the wheels on January 6th. I was aware that they needed about a week lead time to build them, but as the weeks wore on, I started to get antsy. Today I called the number listed on Williams Cycling to inquire about the status of my wheels. I got a voicemail and decided not to leave a message, but to email instead. About 10 minutes later I received a phone call asking for "someone that just called Williams Cycling." Turns out none other than Keith Williams was returning my call. Talk about customer service! He informed me that Saris was having trouble keeping up with demand on the new hubs (as I suspected anyway) and that he would inform me the minute he got my hub and could start building my wheels. We went on to chat about various wheels, etc. What a great guy. Anyway, I later received an email that he had just received my hub, so my wheels should be here soon. I can hardly wait.
But seriously folks. If you are looking to buy new wheels, check out Williams Cycling. Awesome product combined with some of the best customer service around... you can't beat that.
4 comments:
Congratulations on your new wheels! You are the only other person I know with as big a wheel fetish as mine. Actually, I'm sure your fetish is bigger! Hope they get to you soon.
It is possible that my wheel fetish is bigger than yours (though not 100% positive), and I know my sock fetish is so bad it classifies me as boderline OCD, but I always defer to the Major when it comes to electronics. Looking forward to seeing you in Feb!
Jeez VC, as a complement, sounds like you can out tech 1/2 of my 30 person staff. They would think you misspelled SRAM and think that Powertap is some new dance craze. Williams wheels have been pretty bombproof on our bumpy VT roads. As a non Williams dealer I should not say this, but they have gone toe to toe durability wise with the Zipp and Lew wheels I run. Best of luck this season.
cool to hear about Williams. I've been eyeballing a set of those for a little while, but when Keith Williams himself stepped into a discussion on the weightweenies forum, I was sold on the quality of the brand!
Hope you like the new wheels, Car Clinchers are suuuper smoooooth
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