Long before vehicles of the four-wheel persuasion adorned Pirelli tires, two-wheeled jitneys were the first to feature the vaunted Italian brand’s rubber.
After a long absence from the cycling segment, Pirelli began repositioning itself in the bicycle tire market over the last year, offering a series of traditional high-performance clinchers.
The latest to join Pirelli’s growing range of tires is the new tubeless ready Cinturato Velo, which is designed for a wide range of uses such as road racing, training, light gravel riding and fast commuting.
According to Pirelli, the Cinturato Velo is a reinforced tire that may be used with or without an inner tube, which means it’s designed to offer maximum reliability in any road conditions, no matter how adverse.
Protection is provided courtesy of Pirelli’s new Armour Tech technology which the company says was specifically developed for cycling.
For instance, the Cinturato Velo’s carcass features a reinforced layer of nylon and aramid (generally used in aerospace and military applications), along with the company’s SmartNet silica compound, providing exceptional puncture resistance and improved grip in the wet.
The Cinturato Velo is available in four sizes, ranging from 26mm all the way up to a hefty 35mm, which demonstrates Pirelli’s goal of making the tire universally appealing, while all variants can be used with or without an inner tube.
As for pricing and weight, Pirelli has published the following:
more from Pirelli…
Cinturato Velo fears nothing: mileage, bad weather, irregular road surfaces, unpaved and bumpy roads, cobblestones. It is the only tire in its class that is easy to fit and at the same time ensures long-lasting performance, even in aggressive riding conditions. To achieve this result, Pirelli’s engineers have conducted extensive studies on the development of the most appropriate bead shapes, conducting dynamic tests on clincher tires with and without an inner tube, so as to verify tire performance and road holding in both configurations.
In the new tire, Pirelli’s patented SmartNet Silica compound has been further strengthened by the presence of aramid fibers in different concentrations. Known for their high tensile strength and low specific weight, these fibers ensure excellent cut-through and impact resistance (it is not by chance that they are also used in bulletproof vests).
The fibers get thicker from the outermost layer of the tread to the layers underneath. The first layer of the compound (Cap) ensures the tire’s performance in terms of grip, rolling resistance, and mileage, but does hold on to pebbles or granules, which, as the wheel turns, may penetrate through the carcass and cause punctures. The next layer (Base) is enriched with a greater quantity of aramid fibrils to improve its structural characteristics and at the same time ensure excellent ride-ability and outstanding puncture resistance.It is the combined efforts of the fibrils and the fabric plies underneath that ensure the outstanding features of the tire in terms of puncture resistance, as well as the uniqueness of the patent requested by Pirelli. When a sharp object tries to perforate the compound layers, the density of aramid fibers around the entry point increases, making for enhanced resistance to penetration. As a result, the foreign body cannot go through the warp and weft of the inner puncture protection layers.
In this manner the tire can tackle any road surface, even moderate off-road terrains such as dirt roads, minimizing the risk of a puncture. Thanks to the Armour Tech technology (patent pending), the tire offers optimal rolling performance on any road surface, together with superior comfort, even after riding many miles.
Cinturato Velo comes in a wide range of widths to meet the needs of a wide range of end users and market segments.
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