Mavic unveils Cosmic CXR 80 aero wheels

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After already being raced for about a year under the Garmin-Barracuda team, Mavic finally announced the release of the new Cosmic CXR 80 aero wheels. According to Mavic's testing at the wind tunnel in Geneva - which we were on hand to witness - the new Cosmic CXR 80s produce substantially lower drag than Zipp's 808 Firecrest(Image credit: Jonny Irick)

The wind tunnel that Mavic uses in Geneva, Switzerland, also tests a wide range of other equipment including Formula 1 cars, airplanes, and just about anything else that will fit inside the chamber. For example, these wings were used by Swiss daredevil "Jetman" Yves Rossy to cross the Grand Canyon back in May 2011. The single gram resolution of the wind tunnel has even allowed drag measurement of watch hands for a Swiss company - for improved long-term accuracy, of course(Image credit: Jonny Irick)

The wind tunnel was only made possible by virtue of an abandoned civil works project. Back in the 1920s, a tunnel was partially dug to run train tracks below the road surface of this bridge but that plan was scrapped. The wind tunnel now occupies the leftover void and thus enjoys constant environmental conditions around the clock - and year-round - thanks to the considerable thermal mass of the surrounding mountain(Image credit: Jonny Irick)

We were bystanders in Geneva, Switzerland, while technicians tested various setups in the wind tunnel. With seemingly no funny business at work here, the new Mavic Cosmic CXR 80 wheels displayed dramatically lower drag than Zipp's 808 Firecrest wheels past about nine degrees of yaw. Stall angle without the blades installed is an impressive 13.5 degrees or so while adding them pushes that out another 1.25 degrees(Image credit: Jonny Irick)

This article originally published on BikeRadar

About 4mm of that width at the tire bed is dedicated to a channel on either side for the new CX01 'blades' – nearly weightless plastic strips that snap into place to produce a smooth transition between the tire sidewall and rim. When combined with the slightly altered casing profile and special tread texture of the matching Yksion CXR tire, the result is a NACA 0024 airfoil profile on the leading side of the wheel and a truncated NACA 0011 airfoil one on the trailing side.

Mavic's wind-tunnel data suggests modest aerodynamic gains over a Zipp 808 Firecrest at yaw angles up to about 10 degrees. However, Mavic's data also suggests that the 808 begins to stall out at that angle while the drag for the Cosmic CXR 80 continues to drop. When the Cosmic begins to stall at 18 degrees – and where the difference is most dramatic – Mavic claims a 6.4W energy savings at 50km/h (31mph), which translates to 15 seconds saved over a 40km time trial or a more substantial 1' 10" for a full Ironman leg.

Attention has to be paid to those novel 'blades’ that smooth the transition between tire and wheel. Garmin-Barracuda used them for a bit last season — until the UCI at least temporarily banned them, pending further investigation. Mavic's tunnel data suggests that the blades' biggest effect is on stall angle, which drops to about 14 degrees when they're removed. Up until that point, however, the blades don’t have a huge influence.

Aerodynamic benefits aside, the new Cosmic CXR 80 looks to be a capable wheelset in other key performance areas. Total claimed weight without tires is a respectable 1,630g (725g front; 905g rear; 2,170g with tires and blades) so they're still useful on moderately hilly courses. In addition, the sleek carbon-bodied hubs feature reasonably wide aluminum flange spacing for good overall stiffness, standard straight-pull bladed stainless steel spokes and external nipples are used for easier servicing, and the hubs use a similar internal layout to Mavic's current design.

In fairness, we at Cyclingnews don't have sufficient technical knowledge to determine if the Geneva tunnel's protocols genuinely replicate real world benefits or if the programmed algorithms generate truly accurate drag data. However, it's difficult to find fault with the relative inflection points of the Cosmic CXR 80's and the Zipp 808 Firecrest's respective curves that were generated right before our eyes.

Mavic introduced just this single wheel model at the launch and wouldn't confirm plans for future releases. However, the obvious dedication to aerodynamic testing recently – not to mention the glaring omissions in the current line-up – plus the known existence of other pro-only wheels currently undergoing testing such as the Classics-friendly M40 strongly hints that there is more to come. It's difficult to predict the timeline but we expect to see 40mm and 60mm CXR variants in the near future along with some sort of clincher version, too.