Man, I love cotton casing tires. This is not one. That said, this is a fresh (and awesome) tire from the folks at Vittoria.
If you scroll through our review archive, you’ll see we reviewed a couple of generations of Vittoria’s Corsa tires. Classic high thread count cotton tires, designed for maximum performance with sublime ride qualities.
This is a re-invention from Vittoria; their words: “Nylon casing provides durability, for daily racers who want to raise the bar of their performance relying on a long-lasting tyre.
Cotton tires with relatively thin treads, whether the ‘open’ tubulars that amateurs use, or the tubulars of professional, ride great but wear fast. The construction technique also requires assembly by hand, making them more expensive than vulcanized tires.
Tubeless. At all performance levels, tubeless is becoming the standard. While a cotton casing can be developed for tubeless applications (See the Vittoria Corsa Pro) that further drives the cost up and in general that level of tire is designed for race day rather than durability.
Enter the Vittoria Corsa N.ext. A light nylon 100 tpi casing using a fresh vulcanizing technique that keeps the threads supple. The same tread pattern as the Corsa Pro with a compound designed for lower rolling resistance and good wear.
The tire comes in 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, and 34 mm widths. Tubeless ready or standard clincher. For now, we’ve been testing the standard clincher.
One of the interesting things about the sizing is this tire is not quite as ‘tall’ as others in the Vittoria line (and competitiors). We were pleased to fit the 30mm on a rim brake bike with plenty of clearance (we assumed the bike would only take the 28mm). The tread width seems correct, but the tire does give up a bit of volume. The benefit to older bicycles looking for a wider footprint is obvious.
We found the ride amazingly supple at proper pressures. Compared to the top competitors quite popular tire (4 digits) it was considerably smoother. While not quite as supple as the cotton Corsa, it was much closer than we imagined.
Rolling resistance. There are tests comparing this tire to those of similar construction. You might give up a few watts on the resistance, BUT we think that the suppleness will gain those watts back on real world road surfaces. We did use the 26mm version with latex tubes for a Time Trial and felt no handicap.
We’ll update this on tread wear as we get more mileage, but we expect them to outlast our more expensive tires while delivering most of the benefits. Marginal gains? Yes, a pure race tire will always offer that. Daily driver? The N.ext is a yes for most, with less need to change for race day.