Pirelli has unveiled the most recent in its line of highway tyres, the P Zero Race 4S, which is able to sit among the many model’s efficiency ‘Race’ vary, however with a deal with sustaining efficiency in all circumstances, quite than solely on race day.
It replaces the present P Zero Velo 4S, which when it comes to whole gross sales have been the finest highway bike tyres since Pirelli’s return to the game, and comes with a full-house of claimed enhancements over its predecessor, protecting weight, sturdiness, pace, puncture resistance, consolation and grip. Pirelli says that it is going to be aimed toward highway cyclists who’re within the efficiency advantages of its sooner P Zero Race TLR and P Zero Race SR, but additionally need one thing akin to a fit-and-forget answer, equivalent to racers who need one tyre for the entire season.
It’s constructed utilizing the identical SmartEvo compound discovered on others within the Race vary, and the tyre’s casing is designed to be extra suitable with the broader rim requirements of at this time’s fashionable wheels. As such, the precise width on a brand new P Zero Race 4S can be higher than that of the outgoing P Zero Velo 4S, in flip leading to a wider and shorter contact patch to help grip and rolling resistance.
What makes the P Zero Race 4S fascinating is its journey to existence, and to assist clarify this, we’ll first take it again a step to the start of Pirelli’s fashionable foray into biking.
In 2017, the model returned to biking with the P Zero Velo vary, however a lot of the development was outsourced to rivals. Pirelli retained using its personal patented chemical building of rubber compound, however turning that compound right into a usable tyre required instruments and equipment that Pirelli did not have, so Hutchinson was contracted to fabricate the highway tyres, whereas Vittoria was chosen for all issues mountain biking.
Quick ahead 5 years to at this time and the model has not too long ago switched on manufacturing in a newly repurposed manufacturing unit on the outskirts of Milan. The brand new Race 4S is the primary of its whole line to finally be, because the model proudly moulds onto the tyre’s sidewall, “made in Italy”.
Till now, Pirelli’s funding in its biking portfolio has been vanishingly small compared to the dimensions of its general enterprise. Pirelli is an organization with over 30,000 staff, however amongst these simply 30 are in biking. A kind of is the Sport Advertising Supervisor, Davide Valsecchi, who defined to Cyclingnews that the multi-million-Euro funding into the manufacturing unit allowed the model to actually ramp up – or in his phrases, “go full gasoline” – on analysis and growth to create new applied sciences, earlier than admitting the model “stored issues off the desk” close to innovation and analysis, for worry of imitation.
In the intervening time, different merchandise within the Pirelli vary will proceed to be produced by Hutchinson, however the intention is to carry all manufacturing into its personal facility.
The P Zero Race 4S marks a brand new step in Pirelli’s historical past then, and a slice of that historical past will set you again £61.99 / $84.90 / €69.90 / AUS$109.99 per tyre.
Sadly, tubeless converts must wait slightly longer, for the reason that P Zero Race 4S is accessible solely as a tube-type clincher at launch. Tubeless will comply with, however precisely when is unknown and timescales ranged from ‘in a month’ to ‘later within the season’ when requested.
