onm
■
- Sep 2, 2009
- 5
- 0
Got these to put on my new carbon tubular rims, and have put in over 1000km on them on a variety of terrain, so thought it would be good to give impressions.
Price; A lot of money, at around 7000-8000yen, depending on where you buy them. The exchange rate at the moment means they are about the same price buying internationally online.
Fitting; Easy enough with Miyata tape, which I have so far not had any problems with. Takes a bit of attention to details to get them bang-on straight, but nothing 20 mins of work can't do.
Use; Weird, compared to clinchers (I was running the Vittoria Open Corsa Evo CX IIs previously, so good to compare). They have a softer feel, even when running at very high pressure. I have been running these at 140PSI, and they still feel smooth and soft, and don't knacker me out with harshness.
Handling is amazing - the more I use them, the more I feel I can lean these babies riiiiight over. I feel my descending has improved as a result. Perhaps not externally observable, but I feel way more confident in myself with these tyres, which is what really matters I suppose.
They are downright bloody fast too. I feel like I am flying on these, really.
Downers; They are expensive, yeah. Also, I snapped a valve core in half, but got the tyre replaced by the shop as this was a freak occurrence, and I really don't think it should be taken as an indication of the quality of these tyres. The valve as a whole, is not replaceable like on previous models of this tyre, instead Vittoria have bonded the valve directly to the tyre body, so getting longer valves, etc, is a different process. I just run a standard length one and put an extender on it to pump it up. No problems there.
So there you go; premium, expensive, but lush to ride. They don't appear to show any real signs of wear at all, despite riding them over some pretty rough ground already, too.