All About the New Princeton Carbonworks Alta 3532 Wheels in Zwift

Princeton Carbonworks arrived in Zwift last week, with three wheelsets released to the game: the Alta 3532, the Wake 6560 White, and the Mach TSV2/Blur Disc. Today, we’re looking at the Alta 3532 wheels, which are ultra-lightweight climbing wheels.

Here’s what the Drop Shop says about them: “Float up the climbs. Flow through the corners. A light-on-your-feet feeling with instant acceleration, effortless rhythm, and the kind of ride that makes every effort feel smoother.”

The wheels are now available in the Drop Shop, accessible at level 35 and above, for 685,000 Drops. They are rated 3 stars for aero and 4 for weight, so we expected them to climb quite well. But since Zwift’s 4-star rating system isn’t precise enough for our taste, we ran these wheels through our standard battery of tests to determine exactly how they perform in Zwift and stack up against other wheelsets in game.

Let’s dive in and learn all about the performance of this wheelset from Princeton Carbonworks…

Aero (Flat/Rolling) Performance

Princeton’s Alta 3532 wheels deliver “midpack” aero performance, which isn’t surprising considering their profile.

They are 26.8 seconds faster across an hour of flat riding compared to our baseline 32mm wheels. This puts them effectively neck and neck with the Zipp 353 NSW wheels, the top climbing wheels in the game. For comparison, the most aero non-disc hoops in game (ENVE SES 8.9) put 46.7 seconds into the baseline wheels across an hour.

Climb Performance

When the road tilts upward steeply, the Alta 3532 really shine! They outclimb every other wheelset in the game, and by a significant margin.

Princeton’s Alta 3532 wheels gain 14.1 seconds over our baseline wheels in an hour of climbing, beating the current top climbers (Zipp 353 NSW and Lightweight Meilenstein) by 4.3 seconds.

Note: all test results above are from a 75kg, 183cm rider holding 300W steady using the Zwift Carbon frame.

Conclusions

The Alta 3532 wheels from Princeton are Zwift’s new top climbing wheels, edging out the Zipp 353 NSW and Lightweight Meilenstein, which were effectively tied for the top spot.

Their aero performance is rather lackluster, though, so racers may want to look at one of the all-arounder wheelsets for all but the steepest and longest race climbs.

(Speaking of all-arounders, look for a post on Princeton’s new Wake 6560 wheels to drop soon. Their performance on the flats and climbs is second to none!)

These wheels have been, or will soon be, added to the following posts:

• Master Zwift Wheels List
• Zwift Speed Tests: Wheel Ranking Charts
• Fastest Climbing Bike Frames and Wheels at Each Zwift Level
• Zwift Shopping Guide: What To Buy from the Drop Shop at Each Level
• Zwift Speed Tests Public Data (Google Sheet) (added)

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