What Wheels Work Best with a Stromm Track Frame?

We've gotten a few questions about what wheels to best use with a Stromm track frame, and we wanted to put our recommendations out there to help you pick.  In the interest of time, this post will be a little light on data, but I'll do my best to provide a sense of general trends and magnitude.  These recommendations are all based on wind tunnel data - we wanted to know how to spec our Stromm frames, so now we want you to know too.  Keep in mind this post is coming from the aero guy, so pros and cons like cost, stiffness, and weight are all left to you the reader to consider for yourself. 

The great news is that one of the major advantages of our widely spaced fork and stays is that they reduce frame-wheel interaction to a minimum.  There's essentially no Stromm-specific benefit or downside to traditionally-spoked, 5- or 3-spoked, or lenticular/flat disc wheels.  The faster the wheel, the faster your Stromm.  No more need to test which wheel work well with your frame.  Easy, peasy. 

So what does that mean?  In general, a well-designed disc is much faster than a well-designed tri-spoke, which is a little faster than a well-designed spoked wheel of the same rim depth.  

Traditionally spoked wheels are just a little slower than 3-spoke or 5-spoke wheels in general.  Be aware that there are "bad" 5-spoke wheels out there that are worse than traditionally spoked designs - look for 5-spoke and 3-spoke wheels with higher depth-to-width ratios for the spokes to find the faster options.  I won't name names here out of respect for wheel manufacturers, but do your research. 

Disc wheels are noticeably faster than other options.  Indoors, lenticular vs flat disc wheels are pretty close in speed, and the specific model seems to matter as much as the overall shape.  Outdoors, assuming you're brave and/or handling-savvy enough to run discs, lenticulars will often add a little more thrust in crosswinds, depending on the model, so I'd recommend them in that competitive environment.  Keep in mind this post is considering aerodynamics only - my colleagues tell me lenticular discs can be stiffer, for example!