Enve 4.5 vs Zipp 404 firecrest

William Jenks

Hey all -

Long complicated story here, but let's just be up front and say it involves me crashing at 35 mph in a road race while borrowing my daughter's older Zipp 404s...and me coming out a bit less broken than one of the wheels.  :-)

The long and short of it is that - due to various team and crash-related discounts - I have the opportunity to buy either a new pair of Zipp 404 firecrest (which will be fitted with an old PT hub) or an entirely new set of Enve 4.5 with a new PT hub, both for the same price.  The discount is obviously higher for the Enve's than for the Zipps, but that's not the point.

These are primarily for general purpose draft-legal racing, so there's no reason to get anything deeper.  Also, I am assuming that the relative "aero-fastness" of the two wheel sets is sufficiently similar that this is not a major criterion for choosing.  For once, the price would be identical (normally, Enves are crazy $$$...what else can you say is MORE than Zipps?)

So the real question comes down to (a) reliability; (b) braking; (c) handling, especially in wind.  I am a HUGE fan of the Zipp 808 fc wheel that I ride on both road and TT bike.  It handles better than the old Zipp 404 we are replacing and a Hed wheel I have....so I assume the 404 fc handle like a dream.  I want her to be able to ride the wheels with confidence all the time.

Does anyone have experience with the Enves?  or even better, with both?

Thanks!
William

Robert Sabo

I have Enve 8.9 Carbon with G3 hub on my Tri and love them.  I ride them all the time not just racing.  I also have 404 FC with G3 hub on my roadie and actually wish they were 303s as they still catch a little to much wind.  So my recommendation would be slight less deep with whichever is cheaper.  If you're set on 404/4.5, I'd go with the 4.5 and new PT as it's the better deal for similar wheelset.

DAVID RICHMOND

0 experience with the Enve, have 404 FC, road race and tri+ train with them, they take a beating in some of our roads here, never an issue with them, never needed retrueing... pretty much bomb proof

scott dinhofer

I have Enve 2/3 on my new road bike and 404/808 on my tri bike. Both have high quality bearings/hubs. I think there is no "better" sure the wind tunnel may say something to you as to which is "faster" but one minute of sitting up in the bars out of aero probably negates the difference as to which is faster. 

IMO you go with the ones that aesthetically please you, your bike should Excite you to look at as much as it moves you to get around the course on it, my $.02

Paul Hough

I have 2 sets of Enve that are wonderful, but they are Enve rims built-up by WheelBuilder -- i.e., better than factory.  If I were choosing, it would be Enve hands down over Zipp. 

William Jenks

Thanks for the advice.  In the last few days, it turned out a local teammate (of Olivia's) decided to switch to a disk-based bike and offered to sell me his just-barely-used Zipps for a sum that will save me about $800.  That made the decision easy.  :-)  When all is said and done, I expect to have a practically-new set of Zipp 404 with a PT for a net of notably under $1000.