We work with a lot of world class triathletes, and there's no doubt that disc brake tri bikes are becoming more prominent in the industry. Our CCX52 wheel set has been great on those bikes so far, but we needed something much more aerodynamic for race day.
One of the major questions was whether or not we would carry forward our hookless rim profile to the new CCX86 rim. The hookless profile is awesome to allow for a huge range of tire sizes (learn more about hookless here: https://www.velonews.com/2018/10/news/tech-podcast-why-hookless-rims_480080), but there likely won't be anyone out there using the CCX86's for gravel grinding. The downside to the hookless profile is that there have been a lot of people, mainly triathletes, who have wanted to run our CCX52's at 120psi. Regardless of how much more air volume is in the tire due to the hookless profile, they wanted 120 or would buy something else. So we decided to split our CCX line right down the middle: The CCX28 and CCX40 will remain unchanged: super light weight and hookless for road and gravel use, and will be renamed CCX28HL and CCX40HL. The CCX86 rim is a hooked profile to allow for extremely high pressure use if the rider wants it, and we have a new hooked CCX52 model to match it. The hookless CCX52 rim is still in stock and being sold, but it will likely be phased out in the coming months as we transition over to the new profile. We still own the slider for the hookless mold, so if anyone special orders a CCX52HL wheel set we will be able to do it with a certain lead time.
One thing people may notice is that our CCX311 and CCX86 models, like the rest of our disc brake models, are 6-bolt. This allows us to keep the bearing spacing 8.3mm wider than any Centerlock system out there, simply because we do not have to account for the internal lockring threads.
We've also been happy to recommend the SwissStop Catalyst rotors, which have a 6-bolt 140mm model that runs 52C cooler than the Shimano rotor, so that's been excellent. Between the stiffer and more responsive ride quality that the wider bearing stance provides, and the great rotor options, we had no reason to move forward with a Centerlock design that would only diminish the wheel's performance.
The last bit to mention would be our new SRAM XDR freehubs, which are compatible throughout our entire lineup. That means you can run it on the new CCX311 disc, which will be a fantastic setup for triathletes. We think a 1x12 on a high end tri bike would definitely be as good as it gets!
Bobby Sweeting
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