Ursus’s new Arya G wheelset will make its WorldTour debut this Sunday at Paris-Roubaix with the Picnic PostNL team. The Italian brand markets it as an “allroad and fast gravel” wheel, but at the same time says it’s more than that: “It is an engineered system designed to adapt to different surfaces without losing its identity, delivering consistent performance even in the most unpredictable conditions,” the press release claims.
Some teams ride their standard road wheels with bigger tyres – Mathieu Van der Poel for instance has ridden Shimano Dura-Ace C50 wheels for all three Paris-Roubaix wins. By contrast, we reported recently that Tudor Pro Cycling will be using DT Swiss’s GRC 1100 DICUT full-blown gravel wheels for their Roubaix debut. The problem for the performance staff to solve is to find a wheel that rolls fast across the cobbled sectors but which doesn’t slow the riders down on the smooth asphalt in between.
The Ursus Arya G appears to bridge the gap between the two wheel categories very neatly thanks to what it calls “genuinely disruptive technology”. Ursus’s OmniTune System (OTS), designed to bring together terrain adaptability, mechanical efficiency and ride feel into a coherent whole, has at its heart new Sapim RC-1 PBO spokes. These are proven to damp vibration thanks to a construction using 16,000 filaments of PBO or polyphenylene bensobisoxazole – said to be the world’s strongest manmade fibre – that's wrapped in an outer sheath to resist UV degradation and protect against accident impacts. According to data collected by the Ursus laboratory, the Arya G 50 with OTS technology reduces vibrations caused by asphalt and uneven terrain by 79.67%, compared to the brand’s Proxima R 50 wheel.
PBO is not new as a spoke material: it was perhaps at its most easily identifiable in the 1990s when Spinergy used it – in eye-poppingly bright colours – to lace its Spox wheels. Sapim's RC-1 PBO spokes are unfortunately only available in black but, according to the brand, save 100 grams per wheelset compared to the best stainless steel aero spokes and 50 grams compared to carbon fibre spokes.
The new Sapim spokes, laced in Ursus's trademarked Y-stars 2:1 pattern onto Ursus’s U-RG60 hub, are designed to improve tension distribution between the rim and the hub. Ursus says this is where structural engineering turns into a performance advantage: “Unlike conventional road wheels, which tend to become harsh or lose stability and precision as the road surface changes, Arya G is built to respond differently… enabling the wheel to absorb road irregularities, damp high-frequency vibrations and preserve an immediate, sharp response even during accelerations and re-acceleration.” The wheels have a comparatively low spoke count of 21 for both front and rear.
The rim is a 50mm deep section with a wide 25mm internal width and 31mm external. It’s tubeless ready with mini-hooks rather than hookless.
The total weight is 1,340 +/-40g and it will retail at 2,500 euro per pair.
Picnic PostNL riders, including the 2015 Paris-Roubaix winner John Degenkolb, have been testing the Arya G on the pavé and are quoted as having praised its responsiveness and handling. Degenkolb himself says in the press release: “From the moment I first rode the Arya G during my recon rides for the Spring Classics, I immediately felt that sense of stability and reactivity, combined with the ability to absorb the harshness of the stones on the hardest sectors. Comfort is performance.”
Piet Rooijakkers, Picnic PostNL’s R&D expert says: “Arya G is a truly innovative and fundamental tool for the team, because it allows us to tackle mixed surfaces at full intensity while keeping reactivity completely intact and delivering an exponential increase in comfort.”
Earlier this week we covered the launch of the new Parcours Strade GT wheels, which feature vibration-damping technology via recycled carbon fibre. It seems that comfort is fast becoming the new aero.
For all the details visit Ursus’s website.
