By Cedrick Gousse

When I do take time to put words down about a product, it usually means it has fundamentally changed or improved my experience on the bike. The wheelsets I picked up from November Bicycles this year proved to be no exception as they are outperforming my already high expectations. Let me start by saying I received no product or discounts for this review, just writing as someone who bought two of their wheelsets and solved many headaches.

From their site :

Racing bicycles and wheels cost too much.

Much of this cost – inventory risk, advertising, professional sponsorship, distribution channel morass, financing expense – contributes absolutely nothing to a bike’s performance. We realized that by stripping out all of the expenses that don’t add value, we would be able to sell remarkably high quality frames, bikes and wheels at a fraction of what other brands charge. So that’s what we decided to do."

Based in D.C., November, founded by Mike May and Dave Kirkpatrick, specializes in bringing quality frames and wheels to market at reasonable prices.  I like many reading this I race in the amateur categories sans team car and have limited resources when it comes to my personal service course.  When November came across my radar, through their incredibly frank blog posts I quickly realized their no-BS approach meant they’d be more likely to deliver the value (performance/dollar). A few months interacting with them through email and phone convinced me to finally try a set.
It took me awhile to be in the market for new wheels. As a rider , I’m one of those guys who always checks the weight limit on something before buying, sitting a shade under 216 lbs. As a racer, though immodest to say aloud, I can generate a fair bit of torque (1630W+ at a lowish sprint cadence). It’s fair to say I have destroyed more stuff than I would have time to list here.  I’m an outlier on both weight and power bell curves and not what wheel companies immediately think of when they use the words “Clydesdale”,”Stallion”,”Bull”, or whatever other equine\bovine descriptors marketing dreams up. So when I did go looking for wheelsets, I had a good idea of the performance characteristics I needed.

FSW(Friggin Sweet Wheelset)23s

At the time I had spent almost a year rolling around on HED Ardennes, and before that Mavic Cosmic Carbone SLs. The HEDs proved to be tough, and were only retired when I hit a pothole that would have clean snapped lesser rims. The real fatal flaw though, was the freehub body. Made of soft, overly machined aluminum (to save weight) they proved too dainty for my day-to day use, resulting in four expensive replacements over 10 months.

I jumped right in and order a pair of November FSW 23’s . We’re talking Novatec Hubs laced with Sapim Laser Spokes to Kinlin Rims.Coming out of the box they look all-class ; machined brake, gloss black rim walls, stainless spokes, and gorgeous red anodized hubs. In the 28/32 spoke configuration they come in at claimed weight of 1610g with a 220lb weight limit (I don’t have a scale handy at the time of this writing but will add in actual weights later). Not bad, my old wheels sat at 1517g, but what you’re paying for with this extra weight isn’t really apparent until you ride them.

The first time I took a corner on the wide rimmed HED’s, I was shocked at how much confidence they inspired. Riding the Novembers with I was once again impressed. Between the 23mm brake track width and the extra 10/8 spokes, when you lean them over, the bike tracks incredibly true through turns, and has the kind of instantly engaged, snappy acceleration people might usually reserve for mtb wheels.Incidentally, you can get FSW’s built with Chris King R45 hubs for even more of that ‘instant on’ quality. Out of the saddle efforts are like getting shoved from behind; everything goes down to the road, with almost no flex between the pads (for reference, I can make zipp 404s touch the pads pretty easily).  Any ride quality issue from these impressively stiff wheels was mitigated by the ability to run slightly lower pressure on the wide rims.  They climb decently, certainly better than many other wheels in their class (wide alloys with high spoke counts), though anyone looking for wunderwheels that go up like Pantani may want to turn to one of their lighter builds.

Saving the best for last, lets look at Durability. At the time of this writing I have almost 4800km on my set. In that time, I’ve hit too many pot holes and broken exactly zero spokes.

In fact, when my rear derailleur failed earlier this summer during a practice and went into the spokes at 25mph, only a truing was required to get the rear one back running smooth as anything. Due to the Anti-Bite Guard (a titanium spline set into the freehub body) I haven’t had to think about replacement freehub bodies either. In short, they have really found their place in my arsenal – wheels I can both train and race on that let me go fast without worrying about

durability issues.

For the more svelte among us, they also come in a lightweight 20/24 build (1520g claimed, 160lb limit), and a 24/28 (1570g claimed, 185lb limit). Build time was just over 2 weeks from when I placed the order, but goes up and down seasonally and with new product releases. 

Oh yeah and the price? They start at $525. Awesome.

In the second part of this review, we’ll take a good look at November’s first proprietary carbon offering, the Rail52. Stay tuned!