The Hutchinson Fusion 5 Performance tyre with its 11Storm compound now in a tubeless ready guise
Long mileage, good grip levels and puncture protection; that's the holy trinity of the cycling tyre that brands have long extolled. In much the same way, the Hutchinson Fusion 5 claims to have all three in spades thanks to its 'infernal' 11Storm performance compound. It's also available as an 'all season' tyre too.
As you'd expect from the original pioneer of road tubeless, The Hutchinson Fusion 5 is tubeless ready, meaning it can be run either tubeless or as a clincher. I opted to run mine as the latter, fitting the tyres onto a set of Campagnolo Bora One wheels. While I'm in favour of tyres being tubeless ready, and in particular the versatility that it offers riders, it can make fitting them a touch tougher than your clincher-only tyres and it took myself and another mean fingered member of the Cycling Weekly team to get the bead over the rim.
Before fitting them I'd been impressed at how light the carcasses felt. Weighing it at 238g, they are indeed skimpy and while they offered a significant weight advantage over the Continental GP 5000 tyres I had been using previously it did leave me a touch worried about their puncture protection. I'd also hoped it might make them easier to fit but, alas, it was not to be.
Buy Hutchinson Fusion 5 performance ready tyre at Wiggle for £34
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Credit where credit's due, the 11Storm compound lived up to Hutchinson's claims and the Fusion 5 tyres did roll very well, feeling the perfect complement to high end carbon wheels.
What's more, I'm yet to suffer any flats despite the tyres being subjected to the repeated potholes of the Kent lanes – and that lightweight construction definitely gives them a bit of extra zip.
They're supple too, although their 127 threads per inch count isn't as high as the S-Works Turbo Cotton or the Vittoria Corsa's 320tpi, so I suspect the lightweight construction of the carcass has lot to do with it.
At £39.95 a tyre, the RRP of the tyres comes in well under any comparative tyres I've mentioned in this piece, and they're even more impressive because of it.
