Road Bike Tire Test: Vittoria Corsa G+ (tubular) 25

The various versions of the Vittoria Corsa tubular road bike tires have been the most popular tubular tires for a long time. This is a test of the latest iteration of the tubular Corsa: the 2016 Corsa G+ with the new 4C G+ compound. If you're looking for a test of the clincher version of this tire go here. The Corsa G+ replaces both the Corsa SC and Corsa CX as the "all-round" tubular tire from Vittoria. An even faster Corsa Speed G+ is available as well if you're looking for a no-compromise speed tire.

While the Corsa Speed G+ makes use of a single compound which is purely optimized towards speed, the 4C G+ compound is a compromise between speed, grip, durability, and puncture protection to make this a tire that should serve you well in 90% of all conditions. To offer better puncture resistance over the Corsa Speed, the Corsa G+ comes with a Kevlar reinforced Corespun K casing that provides better all-round puncture protection.

This is only the second tubular tire I've tested so I'll be comparing this tire to the tubular Continental Competition (read review) and the clincher version of this tire: the Open Corsa G+ (read review). More tubular tire tests are coming soon!

The specified weight of the 25x28 version of this tire is 280 grams, my tire weighed in pretty much spot on at 281 grams. The measured width and height at an air pressure of 100 psi / 6.9 bars comes in at 25 mm and 23 mm respectively.

After cutting the tire open, it's interesting to note that the Corsa comes with a latex inner tube while the Continental Competition comes with a thin butyl tube. The use of a latex inner tube should lower the rolling resistance a bit more compared to a butyl tube. The thickness of the tread part of the tire comes in at 2.3 mm, the sidewalls have a thickness of 0.65 mm.

Surprisingly, rolling resistance comes in pretty much spot on to the clincher version of this tire. At an air pressure of 120 psi / 8.3 bars, rolling resistance comes in at 12.3 watts while the clincher Corsa G+ (read review) came in at 12.2 watts. As a sidenote, I should mention that the clincher Corsa was tested with a 100 grams butyl inner tube. When fitting the clincher Corsa with a latex tube just like the tubular version, rolling resistance should come in a bit lower at close to 10.7 watts at 120 psi / 8.3 bars.

When compared to the only other tubular tire that I've tested up to now, the Continental Competition (read review), the advantage the Corsa has over that tire is close to 2 watts / 15% per tire. Keep an eye on the road bike overview page to see if other tubular tires have been tested yet.

Just like the clincher Corsa G+ and Continental Competition, the tubular Corsa G+ scores 11 points in the tread puncture resistance test. In the sidewall puncture test, the tubular version does score quite a bit lower at 3 points Vs 5 points for the clincher version. This lower score can be explained by the fact the clincher has a double layer of casing material over most of the sidewalls while the tubular has only a single layer at the sidewalls.

The Vittoria Corsa G+ is an excellent tire if you're looking for an all-round tubular tire that should suit 90% of all conditions. In both the rolling resistance and puncture resistance tests, it performs very close to the best all-round clincher tires. Compared to its main rival, which is the Continental Competition, rolling resistance comes in 15% lower while both tires perform nearly equal in the puncture tests.

At the time of this writing, this is only the second tubular tire I've tested. I'm working on testing more tubular tires so keep an eye on the road bike overview page to see how the Corsa compares to the other (tubular) tires