So I finally got around to lacing up some of the all black SL42s that Tzusing sent a few months back. 32 hole radial front, 32 hole 3x drive/radial non drive rear. Laced to Velocity's standard road hubs (oh the irony!).

Took them out for their first ride/race yesterday. I live about 1 mile from the local tuesday night crit course so I put the wheels on the trust caad9 for the first time and rolled out my door. The first couple times breaking on the way over there was some weird squeaking but that quickly went away.

After a few warm up laps it was time to race.

The wheels felt all of the following...

Solid
Stiff
Not harsh.

The last was the most surprising. I was expecting a rougher ride out of a 42mm aluminum rim. Weight wise the wheelset competitive with any deep section clincher out there (mavic cosmic carbone, zipp 404, reynolds assault) and with a bit lighter hubs (DT, Am classic, Tune) the would be equal or lighter even with 32 spokes.

I priced them out complete for about $550 which makes them roughly 1/4 the price of 404 clinchers. Not bad.

But anyway... they rode really well. I am VERY satisfied with how they turned out and am anxiously awaiting lower spoke count drillings to play with.