As road tubeless & disc brakes take over the consumer road bike market, the combination is still rare in the pro peloton. So, it was interesting to hear of EF Education First’s team time trial win at the opener of the UCI 2.1 Tour Colombia yesterday, on tubeless Vittoria tires wrapped around tubeless carbon clincher Vision Metron 81 SL Disc wheels. And not just a one-time race experiment, EF has committed to tubeless for the entire 2020 race season for all time trials.
UPDATED with four new wider rim profiles from Vision!
Tubeless Vision Metron Disc wheels & Vittoria Corsa Speed tires
The tubeless wheels are Vision Metron 81 SL Disc, the brand’s newest deep section aero carbon wheel built for triathlon & time trial racing. The 19mm internal hooked, tubeless-ready rim is 81mm deep, with a new overall 26.8mm width that was optimized for 25c tires. The $1834 wheelset features 2:1 laced straight pull bladed spokes, external brass nipples, centerlock disc hubs, and a claimed weight of 1850g.
UPDATE: Vision / FSA has confirmed that these tubeless Vision Metron 81 SL Disc TL wheels are an updated, wider rim profile that has been rolled out rather quietly with improved aerodynamics to better suit more modern road race tire sizes, while the 19mm internal does not change. All of the disc brake tubeless Metron SL Disc TL wheelsets get the wider profiles, with locking tubeless beads & deeper tubeless-friendly center channels. The deeper aero-focused 40mm, 51mm & 81mm rims grow to 26-27mm wide and the shallow 30mm comes to 24.8mm wide.
As for those tires, the team raced 25c Vittoria Corsa Speed TLR tubeless clinchers with latex sealant. The Corsa Speed was one of the first lightweight, race-ready tubeless road tires available on the market. Its handmade, non-vulcanized 320tpi construction that is much like Vittoria’s tubulars, creates a super light tire (claimed 205g for the team’s 25mm choice) that is more supple than most tubeless options, and with one of the lowest rolling resistance figures in the industry. Of course, the Speed has no puncture protection, so it’s still pretty much a TT race-only tire.
Now in their second generation, the tubeless Corsa Speed TLR gets updated Graphene 2.0 rubber, and a move to black only sidewalls that are better sealed for more user-friendly tubeless experience.
Teams at the Colombian race did not contest the TTT on time trial bikes, so the EF team was racing their Cannondale SystemSix aero road bikes rather than the SuperSlice. The team also uses Vision one-piece bar+stem setups instead of the Cannondale-designed KNOT system, so there were still bits of brake & shift lines poking out of the otherwise internally routed cockpits. And out back, some CeramicSpeed OSPW setups to eke out a few extra free watts.
