Pairing with the reintroduction of a Centaur groupset – now updated to a wide range 11 speed gruppo – Campagnolo also has updated their aluminum Scirocco wheelset bringing it up to date as well. The new standout feature of the updated wheelset is of course the move to a Campagnolo’s wider C17 rim profile that started with their Shamal wheels last year to give better support to the wider tires most roadies are riding these days. The wheels are still firmly planted on the road and aren’t designed for super wide gravel tires, but at the same time they offer a solid value coming down in both price and weight from the previous generation of Sciroccos.
Plus, it looks like the wheels are showcasing a new low-cost QR lever that combines the best of both internal & external cam designs. Leave it to the company of quick release skewer inventor Tullio Campagnolo to innovate a QR on a budget wheelset ninety years later…
The new Scirocco C17 wheels get the same 17mm internal width of the rest of their updated road wheels (now including Scirocco, Zonda, Shamal Ultra in rim brake and all of Campy’s disc brake wheels.) C17 is an update to deliver a better, more efficient shape for 25-28mm tires but still is very much a road oriented rim width, as opposed to the current trend of even wider all-road and gravel tires. Campagnolo also claims that the wider rim profile provides an improvement in aerodynamics with a smoother tire to rim shape transition, especially with 25mm tires.
The wheels carry over most of the tech from the previous version of the Scirocco and retain the same 35mm depth in the alloy rim that Campagnolo feels offers an optimal balance of aero performance and light weight. Weight is a pretty big update and the new Scirocco C17 wheelset drops to 1654g (746g front/ 908g rear) for a savings of around 70g over the previous wheelset.
The Scirocco C17 uses a welded rim (not a tubeless ready profile) & machined brake surfaces, something you don’t always get at this price point. The wheels use variable profile, straight pull stainless aero spokes, with 16 spoke radial lacing in the front and 21 spoke G3 grouped lacing on the rear and an oversized driveside flange to balance out spoke tension.
They also get Campy’s Internal Spoke Support tabs, effectively eyelets inside the rim that act as ‘self-aligning’ washers to evenly distribute spoke tension inline with the spoke angle.
Coming in at just 350€ for the wheelset, the Scirocco is actually a few Euros cheaper than the previous generation and now is the lowest price offering from Campagnolo in their C17 wheel update. The wheels are also available with either Campagnolo or Shimano freehub bodies to satisfy anyone looking for an affordable 11 speed road wheelset.
Packaged with the new Scirocco C17 wheels were a new set of Campagnolo quick release skewers. Campy didn’t have much to say about them, but it is a design that I personally haven’t seen from Campy before. One of the big benefits to me with Campagnolo wheels has been their continued use of internal cam QRs, which although they almost always are heavier than external cam designs function much more smoothly, deliver better clamping force, and keep working for many years. The problem besides weight has always been that external cam designs are much cheaper to produce, so often end up as a cost cutting measure on low-cost wheels.
It looks like Campagnolo developed these QRs to trim costs as well, but their design retains the basic structure of an internal cam, meaning that the cam & the cam follower cannot rotate independently like in most external cam designs. This means that the QR still cam develop a high degree of clamping force without having to worry with alignment. We played with these a bit and were pleased with their performance. The question will just be how the stand up over time to contamination for dirt & grit.
