Following the success of its Rapide and Alpinist CLX wheelsets, Roval has decided to bring tubeless-ready technology to their most popular sets of hoops, aptly naming them the Rapide CLX II and Alpinist CLX II.
“When we created the Alpinist and Rapide wheels two years ago, the goal was simple, create the fastest, best-handling wheels for any road. From punishing cobbles to vertigo-inducing summits, from supersonic flatlands to all-day hammer sessions. Did we succeed? Yeah, we’re confident we did. But don’t take our word for it; look at the scoreboard. No wheels have won more on the biggest stages in professional cycling since their release. Over the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Rapide and Alpinist wheels have won more races on the World Tour than any other wheels—155 to be exact*. Cobbled Monuments, Grand Tour stages, high mountains, sprint finishes, and World Championships—the record is crystal clear. Our wheels are the winningest wheels in the world.,” boasts Roval.
Extolling the virtues of reduced rolling resistance and puncture protection that tubeless technology offers, the new Rapide CLX II almost doubles the industry’s current impact standards, while managing to achieve the lightest weight possible thanks to a hooked rim design that’s centered around a 51mm-deep front rim with a 35mm external width and a 60mm-deep rear rim with a 30mm external width rims that underwent extensive testing before Roval committed to a final design.
“The result is a tubeless wheelset that’s faster than most 65mm wheels but is 25% more stable than our CLX50 in heavy wind. Combining the aerodynamics of a deep-section TT wheel with the light weight of a shallower climbing wheel and mixing in the superior efficiency and sublime handling of a tubeless system—the Rapide CLX II delivers maximum speed for real-world riding. It elevates aerodynamic efficiency and climbing performance yet remains masterfully stable and confident handling, regardless of wind conditions,” says Roval.
Details
Ditto for the Alpinist CLX II, which went through no fewer than 50 iterations, hundreds of impact tests and countless hours on the road before Roval decided on a final design, resulting in a wheelset that tips the scales at a feathery 1250 grams, a feat even impressive for a rim brake, tubular variant.
Additionally, both wheelsets feature Roval’s all-new LFD hubs, which see a 50 gram reduction in weight over the previous Alpinist CLX hub, courtesy of new low-profile hub bodies and machined rotor mounts, along with DT Swiss EXP internals and SINC ceramic bearings to deliver silky-smooth efficiency and outstanding durability.
There’s plenty of white paper to back-up Roval’s claims on its new Rapide CLX II and Alpinist CLX II wheelsets, including videos, charts and graphs galore that you can read more about here.
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