Wilier has announced three carbon aero disc brake wheelsets, with the flagship Ult38 tubular weighing a claimed 1390g and coming with CeramicSpeed ceramic hub bearings, Sapim spokes and a 24.2mm wide, 37.9mm deep profile. Price for the wheelset will be €2400.
Wilier says that it’s a natural next step for the brand, building on its expertise in carbon lay-up, materials and aerodynamics. It already has a range of in-house designed carbon bars for its bikes, including the Alabarda bar-stem combo on the Cento10Air and Cento10Pro and the separate carbon bar and stem on its Cento10NDR.
Flagship Ult38 tubular comes with CaramicSpeed bearings
With all the wheelsets being designed for disc brakes, Wilier has been able to use lower temperature resins, rather than having to dabble with wet weather braking performance and the high temperature resins needed to cope with the heat developed by rim brake calipers. Plus, it’s been able to optimise the lay-up to support the tyres while reducing overall rim weight.
ULT38 is a race-ready tubular
Two carbon clinchers
Wilier’s other two wheelsets are both tubeless ready carbon clinchers with stainless steel bearings.
Wilier has designed its own unidirectional carbon rim profiles for its wheelsets
The Air50 is designed as a lightweight aero race wheelset and has a claimed weight of 1540g, with a 19mm internal 26mm external rim width and, as the name suggests, a 50mm deep profile. It’s priced at €1600.
Finally, the NDR38 wheelset has a 17mm internal 24mm external width rim and 38mm depth, for a claimed weight of 1665g. It’s designed to offer reliability and durability in a performance wheelset for endurance riders and is priced at €1300.
NDR38 wheelset offers durability and reliability
All Wilier’s wheels are built up in Italy by wheel and component expert Miche, which has its own automated wheelbuilding and truing facility at its factory in Conegliano, which we visited a couple of years ago. All the rear wheels come with the option to fit a Shimano, Campagnolo or SRAM XD-R freehub.
Wilier’s wheelsets will be available initially only on its 2020 model year bikes. But Wilier expects to offer them as an aftermarket option too in the future.
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Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.
He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.
