Road Bike Tire Test: Vittoria Corsa N.EXT TLR 26

The Vittoria Corsa N.EXT is a brand new addition to Vittoria's range of Corsa road bike tires. The Corsa N.EXT is a bit different though: it's made from a nylon casing with a vulcanized tread, unlike all the previous iterations of the Corsa that always came with a cotton casing and a glued-on tread. The cotton versions of the Corsa (tubular, tube-type, and tubeless) have been around for a long time and are some of the most popular tires in the pro peloton and even won the last three editions of the tour de France.

The Corsa N.EXT is aimed more at enthusiast cyclists with slightly different requirements than pro cyclists. The main differences can be found in the durability, and user-friendliness (see below), as the Corsa N.EXT is designed to clock up the miles while still offering competitive performance.

Vittoria already offered nylon road bike tires with their mid-range Rubino and low-end Zaffiro range. What was missing was a direct competitor to other popular high-end nylon road bike tires like the Continental Grand Prix 5000 and Schwalbe Pro One range of tires. The Corsa N.EXT will now show us what Vittoria can accomplish with a nylon casing, which is exciting as it should be a serious competitor to some of the world's most popular tires.

The Corsa N.EXT TLR is constructed from a 100 TPI casing material with a more traditional three layers under the tread and two layers on the sidewalls. We also find an extra puncture strip under the tread that, combined with the three layers of casing material, should provide good tread puncture resistance. The compound is a new "Graphene + Silica" compound where the addition of silica should improve grip and reduce wear.

When mounting the tubeless-ready Corsa N.EXT, we are immediately faced with a massive advantage over the cotton tires as the Corsa N.EXT can be inflated with a simple floor pump and holds air right from the start. If you've ever tried tubeless-ready cotton tires, you might know that inflating those can sometimes be next to impossible, and getting them to hold air will be another challenge.

Something else we like is the availability of a massive range of different sizes for both the tube-type and TLR versions of the Corsa N.EXT. Both versions are available in 6 different sizes: 24-622, 26-622, 28-622, 30-622, 32-622, and 34-622, which means we're pretty sure the right size is available for anyone. The 28-622 and up sizes of the TLR also come with hookless compatibility.

This is a test of the 26-622 version of the Corsa N.EXT TLR, and we'll compare it against the cotton Corsa G+ 2.0 TLR (read our review) and some of the most popular road bike tires.

The Vittoria Corsa N.EXT excels in our wet grip test and offers better puncture resistance than most recently released tubeless-ready road bike tires that sacrificed puncture resistance for performance. Rolling resistance isn't the absolute lowest, but when we take the puncture resistance, tread thickness, and wet grip into account, it's probably about as good as it gets.

We see very similar performance when we compare the Corsa N.EXT TLR to the cotton Vittoria Corsa G+ 2.0 TLR (read our review). The N.EXT TLR is lighter, should last longer, is more user-friendly, and offers slightly better wet grip in our test. Rolling and puncture resistance are very similar between these tires, but Vittoria made the tread a bit smaller on the Corsa N.EXT, which can be a problem when using these on very wide rims.

If you're looking for a tubeless-ready road bike tire that offers pretty much the best wet grip, good puncture resistance, and you're not looking for the absolute lowest rolling resistance, the Corsa N.EXT TLR is the tire to get.