I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on the new Powell race wheels. From the videos I've been seeing of Evan Toon, they seem like they rip, especially for downhill. I was watching Evan rip BFG on Instagram and from what I could tell the protos seem to have a very smooth slide.
My question is, do you think these will make a competitive race wheel vs Mags? Or are these race wheels more geared for non-competitive downhill?
I'm hoping to see someone race on them at the next soldiers!
I am uneducated on the topic, although if they use the same/similar formula as kevos, I would be concered about the roll speed. Care to weigh in? @Kevin Reimer
My first impression is that they are relying HEAVILY on the shape to do most of the work and seeing if the thane can be useful at this point. Can you think of any Powell thane that would be useful in competitive racing?
@Kurt Derow I feel like they have to have a new formula based on the fact they are pretty damn high quality in terms of wheels as a brand.
@Matt Needs Wheels From all the teases on Instagram there doesn't appear to be a new specific formula for the wheels ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was caught off guard because I thought the white protos were a new duro / formula
@Sam Diefenbacher We shall see, for my purposes (perpetual putting) I'm only buying em if they are the soft slide formula. So I personally hope they are not altered.
@Sam Diefenbacher I have some of the white protos, but theyre from a small batch I specially requested poured in dragon formula for some in-house R&D projects. I've got a few sets of them sitting in a box in the corner of my office😆
I can't say too much else about them since they're not released yet lol
@Jeff Starzl What duro / formula were set out to riders for testing? Just curious!
Praying they aren't swirled. Seen too many swirled snakes/kevins this summer.
I'm excited for the snake thane and paster thane ones for freeride.
@Sam Diefenbacher looks like 75a SSF, and 80a (probably something close to the 80a race red KRimes formula) went out for testing. looks like some 93a dragon formula were teased too.
I don't have the specifics on the testing campain, so I'm going off of IG posts lul
@Jeff Starzl Sounds good, thank you!
@Sam Diefenbacher Based on some recent experiences, I have some suspicion that wheel shape can have just as much an effect on grip as the goo that goes into a urethane. I've seen a bunch of people lathe Mags down into freeride wheels and do huge slides, which makes me think the urethane itself doesn't have to be "grippy" for a full size wheel to have the properties it takes to be a proper race wheel.
@Owen Campbell My oposition to that is lot of wheels have "race characteristics" but are a lot more forgiving and fun to ride due to their thane not being as grippy. This shows the importance of the thane.
The thane and shape presumably have to be maxxed in terms of the perfect ballance of everything wanted in a race wheel.
@Matt Needs Wheels roll speed is actually where our new 78mm excels, since it has more urethane depth than our competitor's wheels and is in the realm of 8-10% heavier. I was surprised with how quick they were. Our urethane is industry leading for rebound, so that's important too. As the proto stands now, it has substantially less flex than Magnums or Seismics, so that also adds to the roll speed being very good since the lips aren't flexing out while you're at speed. This said, they need to be softer and as such I'm working on different lip profiles to that end.
The white formula you've seen it poured in is 80a RACE, just like the 72mm red 80a, and riders have found it to be far more durable skin wise than expected, but as @Owen Campbell points out, the shape has a lot to do with a wheel's performance. There is so much more urethane, basically 50%+ more contact patch than the 72mm that you can't compare the wheels apples to apples.
We have other urethanes, one of which that is based on Dragonskin, that I think has a great potential for a high tack urethane. We of course are going to release this in all our most popular formulas, like SSF, but a proper race formula is the goal.
