HED Ardennes LT

Ardennes if you think classic Belgian racing when you hear these words then we named them right. For us, these wheels evoke cobbles, the hard men of the spring classics, hard training, and serious racing. After 15 years of work staying on top of the aero wheel world, we turned our attention to traditional wheels. It seemed like a strange direction to go, but we got tired of looking at alloy wheels and thinking "these could be SO much better". They are, and we actually surprised ourselves by how much better they are.      
But what makes 23mm better than the ubiquitous 19mm rim? Width. Picture a standard 23mm tire on the C2 rim. Tire and rim width are the same, the sidewalls are fairly straight, and the width of the rim spreads the tread contact patch out.  With straighter sidewalls, and more rubber on the road, cornering is an entirely new experience. The sidewalls don't flop over in a hard corner, and more rubber on the road is, well... better. C2s should be run with lower pressure, since there is more air volume in the wider tire profile. The same tire on a 19mm rim looks more like the profile of a light bulb. The curved sidewalls flop over under hard cornering, there is less rubber on the road, and more air pressure is needed to prevent pinch flats.

Nearly identical to the Ardennes SL, the LT switches the scandium C2 rim for a more economical aluminum one. Despite fitting into the middle of our Ardennes line up, we believe this wheel still stacks up to any of our competitors' best offerings.