Stillwater, Oklahoma was the venue of the recent Land Run 100 gravel race, and the site of Vittoria’s USA-only launch of a new range of gravel tires, the Terreno. But the new tires weren’t the only thing that Vittoria was sporting at Land Run 100. Hidden in plain sight was the company’s newest wheelset, the Elusion, a well priced aluminum wheelset with centerlock rotor interface and compatibility with several axle types.
The Vittoria Elusion aluminum disc brake wheelset is tubeless ready, and features Vittoria’s Speedlock bead profile. Vittoria claims you can literally inflate tubeless specific tires using a mini-pump with their bead technology. The Elusion disc wheelset tips the scales at 1,600 grams for the pair and is compatible with 12mm axles on the front wheel, and 12mm x 142mm axles on the rear wheel. Riders with 15mm front thru-axle hubs aren’t left in the cold – the front can be made compatible with 15mm simply by swapping end caps.
Other features of the Elusion include Premium quality Enduro bearings, straight-pull spokes that Vittoria claim add to the overall durability of the wheelset, and a SwitchIT cassette body. This cassette body allows you to remove the cassette / body without tools, for easy swapping between training and racing wheelsets.
The crew at Vittoria USA raced on this wheelset at Land Run 100, and reported zero wheel issues during the event. This year’s Land Run 100 was an extremely wet, cold and muddy affair, testing riders and equipment to the max!
Retail price on the Elusion disc brake wheelset is $US 599.00. Availability is towards the end of April 2017.
It would be extremely useful if companies would supply *both* 12mm and 15mm end caps for the forseeable future – there are lots of bikes and forks with both sizes out there. Finding a source for end caps – or establishing whether they exist – is difficult and tedious.
Have to agree with you there. I’d also like to see quick release end caps included in the equation.
I forgot about Q/R. They might not matter quite so much as they’re almost extinct on newer bikes, but there are plenty out there. Extra end caps would only cost a small amount to include – much less than tracking them down, buying them and then having them shipped. Plus I’m sure some people have multiple bikes with different sizes…