Corima are among the cycling industry’s oldest carbon rim and wheel makers. Based in Loriol sur Drôme, France, they've just finished the two-year development of two new wheelsets called Aero MCC and Winium MCC, which they launched under Astana’s Giro d’Italia team last month.
The new wheels use a carbon rim and both molded and bonded spoke design, similar to Lightweight, Mavic’s Cosmic Carbon Ultimate and others. “Corima's Aero MCC is a 100 percent carbon wheel produced using a complete composite process,” Pierre-Jean Martin, Corima’s general manager, told BikeRadar via email.
“The rim is made of uni-directional [carbon] and taffetas carbon prepreg fibers wrapped on a foam [core]. The hub is partly made of prepreg carbon fibers and the spokes are totally made of carbon prepreg fibers. Some parts are over-molded and others are adhesive bonded with a structural epoxy adhesive.”
The wheels are offered in an aero configuration called Aero MCC with a 47mm rim height or a climbing version called Winium MCC with a 24mm rim; claimed weights are 1,080g and 980g, respectively. The wheels come with weight limits of 100kg (rider and bike) for the Aero MCC and 85kg for the Winium MCC.
The new Corima wheels have a striking look due to their lack of spokes; each wheel sports just 12 spokes
The MCC name plays on the company’s history. “Corima was created in 1973, but the activities at the beginning were the tooling for composite parts for automotive and aerospace,” said Martin. “When we started the composite carbon wheels and Puma/Cougar frame in 1988, we named it ‘My Corima Carbon’. 22 years later we keep only the initials of ‘My Corima Carbon’, MCC, to name our new range of wheels with carbon spokes.”
Both new wheels feature 22.6mm tire beds, which Corima bill as ‘2D design’. They say the extra girth bolsters both aerodynamic performance and stiffness. The MCC carbon layering technique allows Corima to build each wheel with 12 — the UCI minimum — conical spokes, one of which has a built in magnet. According to Martin, the minimum spoke count improves the wheels' aerodynamics without sacrificing stiffness or strength.
Martin explained that despite the use of CAD software, more than 60 prototypes were built before the final design was decided upon. He said several in-house machine tests and road tests with test riders were carried out to improve the wheel details. The wheels have passed the UCI’s testing, as evidenced by Astana’s use of them in last month’s Giro d’Italia.
Roman Kreuziger took the best young rider competition at the Giro with Corima's new wheels
Corima’s four professional teams — Astana, Saur-Sojasm, Bretage Schuller and Velo Club La Pomme Marseille — will ride the MCC wheels in competition this year. They're available via Corima’s web store and cost between €2,650 and €2,850 depending on rim depth. Only tubular versions are available at this time.