Test: Newcomer Haero Carbon draws attention to itself with a very affordable set of carbon wheels. But the price isn't the only interesting thing about the Haero Carbon Road-Aero 50.
A specialist in mold making with almost 50 years of experience as a supplier to the automotive and mechanical engineering industries, plus a soft spot for cycling - that is the brief history of the Haero brand, a subsidiary of A. Härer Werkzeugbau GmbH. Haero manufactures handlebars for triathlon bikes and racing machines (e.g. the carbon racing handlebar H.145 RR SL with a weight of 159 grams) itself, the company procures other components from cooperation partners - also the wheel set presented here called Road-Aero 50. And it is in special in some ways.
Let's start with the price: 999 euros for a carbon wheel set is record-breakingly cheap, especially since a second important criterion is right, namely the weight. 1.620 grams (front 710/rear 910 g) with rim tape and without tensioners (set: 100 g) are perfectly fine, even if the supplier states a slightly lower weight for the Haero Carbon Road-Aero 50. In view of the dainty Novatec hubs, the 50 mm deep rims shouldn't be too light, but that doesn't affect the handling in any way: The wheels accelerate easily and are pleasantly neutral during abrupt steering maneuvers and when pedaling out of the saddle. Even at high speeds you can steer the bike or put it into the curve without using any additional force. And even when the brakes are tight, the rear wheel doesn't rub against the pad when pedaling hard - a sign of decent lateral stiffness.
However, none of this is a reason to buy a high-profile wheelset - what counts is the better aerodynamics of deep rims, but this depends heavily on the shape. The so-called U-profile with the rounded inside of the rim has proven to be particularly suitable because the aerodynamic "lag", i.e. the braking turbulence zone behind the rim, is particularly small. In addition, there is the so-called "sail effect", which can at least be observed in the wind tunnel: Just as the shape of the wing of an airplane generates lift, certain rim shapes are supposed to provide propulsion - in cross winds the power requirement in the fight against the wind then decreases, the wheels are pushed, so to speak.
The wind tunnel results provided by Haero make us confident - the wheels are even said to achieve a small advantage over a US competitor that is generally regarded as a benchmark. However, what can be measured and described in the laboratory is one thing; practical experience is more important. That's why we ventured onto the road with the Haero Carbon Road-Aero 50 even on days with strong, changing winds. According to popular belief, these would have to tug at the deep rims and exert lateral pressure – conditions in which aero wheels are less than ideal. On exposed roads, which sometimes led more to the right, sometimes more to the left into the wind, the 50 mm wheels allowed a noticeably higher speed than those with conventional, flat rims; the influences on the steering were kept within limits. Sure, there are days when you don't take off your jacket while driving hands-free. But the well-known phenomenon of a gust of wind coming from the right pushing you to the middle of the street did not occur. Later, when we rode the same route back, the wind pushed us extremely hard - another advantage of well-designed aero rims.
The Haero wheels are not particularly strikingly shaped. From the 24 mm wide braking surface, the rims taper evenly instead of widening again like many current models; in the area of the spoke nipples they are rounded. The 20/24 spokes are crossed twice at the rear right, otherwise mounted radially. The internal width of the rims is 16,5 mm, which means that a 23 tire is stretched to 25 mm and a 25 to 27 mm. This ensures a minimal improvement in rolling resistance, but there is another method to optimize it: converting to tubeless tires. Riding tubeless can already save around 30 watts per wheel at 3 km/h compared to identically constructed folding tires. Since the "RoWi" increases proportionally to the speed, there are savings at higher speeds that are quite equivalent to what aero rims bring. Putting a poorly rolling tire on an aerodynamically optimized rim is therefore quite unwise.
With rims that are not explicitly designed for tubeless, assembly and sealing are a bit more complex, but definitely doable. We managed to convert the Haero Carbon Road-Aero 50 from Conti Grad Prix 4000 to Schwalbe Pro One with a mixture of different tubeless rim tapes - so well that several days in the bicycle cellar resulted in only minimal air loss. Of course, that wouldn't work without sealant, which has another advantage: the tires are so puncture-resistant that you can sometimes leave the pump and inner tube at home for important jobs.
If you roll fast, you have to be able to slow down a lot, and in this discipline the carbon rims in combination with the supplied gray pads didn't show any weaknesses - at least in the dry. Strong braking performance without any noticeable wear on the rim or pad, plus low noise development - you can't ask for more.
And so the Haero Road-Aero 50 leave an extremely good impression in all sub-disciplines - or to put it another way: In terms of price-weight-stiffness-aerodynamics-rolling-resistance-braking behavior they are hard to beat. As the saying goes in Baden-Württemberg: “We can do everything. Except High German". Rephrased to this wheelset, it should be: except expensive.
