It’s been a big couple of weeks for wheels and tires, we’ve had the new PZero rubber from Pirelli, Mavic looking to improve road tubeless, and now Hutchinson has announced its latest ElevenStorm compound.
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Having been in development for the past three years, the French company's new compound is claimed to offer no compromises on rolling resistance, grip or durability.
Taking its name from the second highest measurement of a storm's power on the Beaufort scale (just below the hurricane classification of 12), the ElevenStorm compound will feature on Hutchinson's top-tier Fusion5 Galactik, Performance and All Season road tires, and the company says, like any self-respecting storm, they will leave a mark.
Before their launch, Hutchinson took the Fusion 5 tires with the new ElevenStorm compound to the acclaimed Wheel Energy Laboratory — where we conducted our own recent performance road tire test — to evaluate rolling resistance, durability, comfort, weight and puncture resistance against the non ElevenStorm version of the same tires.
The results show that, averaged through the range, there was an overall decrease of 14 percent in rolling resistance, 19 percent in durability, 11 percent in wet grip and three percent in dry grip.
Diving into the specific models, the Fusion 5 Galactik saw a 14 percent improvement in durability and six percent improvement on rolling resistance. The Performance level rubber saw a 14 percent decrease in rolling resistance while the All Weather tire saw a six percent gain in wet weather grip — impressive figures to say the least.
The new rubber from Hutchinson is available in tubed, tubeless and tubeless ready 23c and 25c widths (the Performance and All Season tires also come in 28c tubeless ready), however they are currently listed as 'Out of Stock' on the Hutchinson website and don’t show a price.
Hutchinson makes some pretty lofty claims about its new ElevenStorm Compound