Red dress or Blue dress?

I have definately been in touch with my female side this week. All week I have been trying to decide on climbing wheels or aero wheels (read-Heavier). Ive been out all week on my FP60 (60mm deep clincher) front and my usual Zipp 303 (38mm deep clincher) with Power-tap. I got to tell you that even up small grades and short hills like Berkshire and Shaker, I dont feel the extra weight. What I do feel is that they are always "wound-up". Thye have that feeling like they want to go and go faster all of the time. But, the race I am testing for is a non-stop rolling course with a 1 mile climb and what looks like a short steep climb on an 18 mile lap (done 4x). ON the flip side are my beloved DT240/DTrr1.1 clinchers. At less than 1500 grams for the wheels they easily take 1 lb off my bike. Inertia changes aside from lighter rims, thats 1 lb less to drag up every roller and climb for 72 miles.

Seems simple right? Go with the lighter wheels, but this darn internet and all its armchair scientists makes this a very tough decision. Some say the aero trumps weight everytime (except maybe a hill climb TT) while others say aero only trumps weight over 30mph. The people in favor of aero can calculate how insignificant a large change in rim weight is to wattage, but how large a % of savings an aero rim is. Its goes like this, a rims weight as a percentage of the overall weight of a bicycle and rider is too small to worry about-in laymans terms. The Weight weenies argue that the aero advantge is of no help while in the group and then only if your solo off the front going above 30 mph. I feel its a combination. Ideally if you were to add 1 lb to your bike with aero wheels, you should take a lb off your bike to compare apples to apples, but thats not possible.

The solution is of course to have a light weight set of aero wheels. For the time being, does this dress make me look fat?