You did well to get four and a half years out of them with all that riding. I had a pair of Fulcrum Racing 5s. The rims wore through in around 2 years with relatively light (~2500 miles/year) use albeit in all weather.
I've gone back to Mavic Open Pro Ceramic rims which last years but they're not the stiffest so I'd say you need plenty of spokes!
I'd love to find a pair of nice factory built wheels with ceramic coated braking surfaces.

Email  

Paul I can assure you that the factory wheels where well used, however as I am a small rider, this may have helped save brake wear on the rims.

In the end I did sourced some hand built wheels with IRD aluminium rims, PMP hubs and Sapim C-X ray spokes.

If you look at top end factory built wheels such as Zipp or Enve, essentially they are still handbuilt wheels, so I ended up going down that route.

These new wheels certainly feel smoother.

Email