Composite spokes have promised weight savings for years, but early implementations often delivered compromised ride quality—harsh, buzzy, disconnected from the road surface. Roval's partnership with Arris on the Rapide CLX III Rear Wheel represents a different approach, using aerospace-grade composite manufacturing to produce spokes that save 2.3 grams each while delivering 63 percent more strength than steel equivalents. Across the 24-spoke rear build, that translates to substantial rotational mass reduction concentrated precisely where it affects acceleration response most directly.

The rear wheel runs 48mm deep, deliberately shallower than its 51mm front counterpart. Roval's wind tunnel testing determined that roughly 90 percent of a wheelset's aerodynamic benefit comes from the front wheel cutting through undisturbed air. The rear wheel operates in turbulent flow behind the rider's body, where additional depth yields diminishing aerodynamic returns while adding rotational mass that resists acceleration. Dropping 3mm from the rear profile optimizes the balance between maintaining crosswind stability and maximizing the snap that race situations demand.

Titanium end fittings connect the composite spokes to hub and rim, handling the interface stresses that occur during hard efforts without the weight penalty of steel hardware. The spokes lace in a one-cross/three-cross 2:1 pattern—denser spoke count on the drive side to manage torque transmission, fewer on the non-drive side where structural demands are lower. This asymmetric approach distributes material efficiently, contributing to the 705-gram wheel weight that includes tubeless tape and valve.... Read More