Vittoria Wheels

 

Simon Whiten

 

Most famous for its tyres, Vittoria launches new wheels

 

With companies such as Mavic and Zipp moving from being solely specialist wheel makers into (among other things) tyre manufacturing, and huge bike brands like Specialized and Trek starting to produce everything (wheels, tyres, etc) is it any surprise to see a tyre company such as Vittoria moving into wheel production? We think not. Is it a good thing? Well, given that more choice is always a good thing then we think it is. Still the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so what’s on the menu?

 
Well Vittoria have 8 road and 4 off-road alloy and carbon wheelsets, each matched to suitable Vittoria tyres of course. No surprise that apparently the Vittoria wheels program has seen several years of planning and development. More surprising is that they aim to transform a customer’s ownership experience, with “standards of service and communication never seen before in the bike industry”. They list things like the notification of service-intervals. We are not sure how this will be received but it’s a creditable aim.
 

All the Vittoria wheels will be marked with a non-erasable product ID. This lets customers easily find relevant accessories online, acts as assurance of the product’s authenticity and allows technicians to refer to a wheel’s build, history, and any components required for service and repair. Perhaps taking a potshot at the huge Chinese wheel market, Vittoria also hope this will be a ‘strong deterrent to counterfeiters and thieves’.
 

 
As you read on through the Vittoria marketing material you get an idea of just how serious they are. Firstly there’s the worldwide ‘unified Service Center’ with Service Center technicians kitted out with a ‘standard workstation toolkit’ and ‘standard workflow processes’ to service wheels.
 
A global ERP (enterprise resource planning) system identifies products, orders the right spares if required, and ensures the correct procedures are carried out.
 
A secure tagging system, whereby every Vittoria wheel has a small, centimeter square, holographic ID plate with a unique QR code, showing product type and history, cannot be removed or forged.
 
Benefits include identifying as a genuine Vittoria wheel, register as its owner, take part in Vittoria communications program, help any Vittoria Service Center correctly identify and service the wheel, and reduce the risk of theft.
 
Vittoria has used its experience in racing to match the new wheels to tires so as to extract the greatest possible performance benefit for riders.
 
For the road there are 4 alloy clincher models, a deeper-section hybrid carbon/alloy clincher, and 3 full-carbon tubular wheels. All of the wheels have the usual on-trend characteristics like wide (22 – 23mm for the road and 25 – 27mm off-road), asymmetric rim profiles.
 
More interesting is that all of the alloy rims are said to be tubeless ready, with Vittoria’s Speedlock internal profiling providing better compatibility, easier inflation and less chance of a tubeless tyre rolling-off. However, we have to assume that this is for the off-road wheels only as, to our knowledge, Vittoria are yet to make a tubeless road tyre.
 

 
Hubs are developed by Vittoria, made in Italy and feature SwitchIT tool-free cassette changing. The Qurano for instance, are made of alloy and weighs 104g for the front and 260g at the rear.
 

 
The tubular wheels use carbon-fibre mixed with Graphene to improve the strength and resilience of the composite material. We have discussed Vittoria and graphene before. They claim 10–30% improved material properties, 10–15°C reduced rim braking temperature, 20% increase spoke-hole strength and 50% improved lateral stiffness. Vittoria are keen to promote their ‘perfect match tubular-rim interface’ which will be much appreciated if you are a tubular user.
 

 

Vittoria’s Road Wheels
 
Carbon Tubular Wheels
 

The stand out wheel for us is the Qurano 46 (pictured below), the shallowest of the carbon tubulars, with a 42mm deep front paired with a 46mm deep rear and weighing just 1298g. It uses stainless steel, Vittoria Aero Lite spokes with 16 front and, the increasingly common, 21 at the rear. It will make a great, versatile race day wheelset and should do well for Vittoria.
 

 
Alloy-carbon Wheels
 

The Fraxion wheelset is also interesting, combining alloy braking surface with a carbon aero section. In our experience this makes for a good wheelset for road racing (thinking Dura-Ace or Fulcrum we’ve ridden recently) and is a more practical option for some riders.
 

 
Alloy Wheels
 

The alloy wheels look good with the Nero (pictured below) being particularly attractive at just 1576g. No doubt the Session will be a big seller for Vittoria as well though, aimed at entry level and training set-ups.
 

 
Vittoria’s Off-road Wheels
 
Off-road there’s 3 alloy clincher models and interestingly a full-carbon tubular. 27.5″ and 29″ wheels are available.
 
Alloy XC Wheels
 

 

 
Offroad the Reaxcion (above) looks good on paper, as does the Deamion all-mountain wheelset listed below, but we reckon the carbon tubular Race will be quick and get everyone excited in cross country circles.
 

 
Alloy AM Wheels
 

 
Carbon Tubular XC Wheelset
 

 

 
Here’s a video to get you all excited…
 

 
And here is a more technical overview video…
 

 
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Gallery:
 

 
Websites:
 
VITTORIA
 
UK Distributor is FISHER OUTDOOR
 
USA is VITTORIA INDUSTRIES NORTH AMERICA
 
Australia is GKA Sports
 
SOUTH AFRICA is N2 DISTRIBUTION –