Please recommend some rim brake wheels and/or brake pads. Also, a story.

[Baron Blubba]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

I'm confused -- I thought that C24s were aluminum brake track with carbon faring, but maybe there are multiple models. I had a set of C35 tubulars with Campy red pads and found the braking, especially in emergency situations, lacking.

I got it backwards, you are correct.

Regarding me being in the industry and thus should know these things: Perhaps it's because I'm in the industry that I don't. 98% of the performance bikes I've sold in the past decade have been disc brake bikes. That's a vague estimate number, but it's gotta be close to that. Outside of the Paceline and similar 'purist' communities, most people specifically want disc brake bikes. I personally prefer disc brake most of the time. So it's been a while since I've ridden rim brakes on a road bike.
My high end rim brake wheelset history includes Shimano C35 tubulars circa 2011-2013, Easton EC90's shortly after that, Enve 3.4's after that, and Giant SLR 1 and SLR 0 wheels scattered throughout. The C35's and Eastons were not good in the wet, even on flats. The Enves were a little better, but didn't fill me with confidence. The Giants were okay, but again, approaching an intersection at high speed or hitting a stop sign at the bottom of a steep descent was always sketchy business.

Some folks have mentioned how important it is for the rims to be clean. I'm embarrassed to say this, but that's likely the cause for the piss-poor-performance I experienced a few days ago, as the rims were filthy after a week of riding on wet or damp roads, as it's been on-and-off rain all day all week.
Typically, the C24's have good braking performance.

Still, I'm going to invest in a pair of HED Ardennes Blacks paired with Koolstop salmon pads, because I'd like even better performance, and because I've never ridden HED wheels and am curious, and because they will have better tubeless performance than the allegedly-tubeless 15mm inner rim width Dura Aces. I love the DA C24's, so I'll be keeping a pair handy just in case I don't like the HED's as much.

Mr Potato Head, thank you for your generous offer. I might take you up on it for a different bike in the near future. To be perfectly transparent, I prefer to ride a product that is sellable through my shop, because I do a lot of group rides and people look at what I ride. As good as BTLOS rims might be, it wouldn't be good for business for me to ride a direct to consumer wheelset. Of course, if there was no equal or better option, the quality of the wheel would defeat my capitalistic motive most of the time.

Ridethecliche: I've got no problem riding shallow wheels on any bike. The aerodynamic benefits of a 40-50mm rim appear to be infinitesimally minimal in pretty much all of my riding conditions. For all its round tubes, shallow 10 year old wheels, and 1.5 lbs of weight disadvantage, my Ritchey is maybe 3% slower than my MOG. Maybe. Considering how much time I spend on windy exposed mountains, I'll take the safety and confidence of shallow rims over the teensy weensy bit of speed boost on fast rolling terrain anyday.