Vittoria Launch this month

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TonyM
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by TonyM

Many people also want to believe that what is new (or more expensive) is better!

The Marketing “just” help them.....LOL

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Mr.Gib
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by Mr.Gib

ichobi wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 7:18 pm
One of my staff writer was at the same event as Matt (who wrote that piece)...
When you see the chart you can choose to believe it or you don’t have to (which is how it should be). The best thing we can do is report what we saw, work with what we have and let the reader decide for themselves, then test the tires once we have our hands on the product.
Not sure if Matt works for you or another publication, but he didn't report what he saw, he simply repeated unverified and outlandish claims without stating they were unverified claims. Can't really tell if this is the same approach that you have taken but your post suggest so. That's not journalism.

This statement:
ichobi wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 7:18 pm
When you see the chart you can choose to believe it or you don’t have to (which is how it should be).
is pathetic. Aren't you supposed to contribute something as a journalist - what is your value added? With an attitude like that you are not needed - I can on my own more easily see what Vittoria has to say on their website.
Last edited by Mr.Gib on Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
wheelsONfire wrote: When we ride disc brakes the whole deal of braking is just like a leaving a fart. It happens and then it's over. Nothing planned and nothing to get nervous for.

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ichobi
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by ichobi

He doesn’t work for me and we have not published the article because we find the information provided to be insufficient. Must have felt great calling people you barely know pathetic online right? You don’t even know how we work. Don’t lump all journalist together.

Cyclingtips article is thin for certain in fact it doesn’t tell anything you cant already find on Vittoria website but don’t just assume all outlet will do the same.

youngs_modulus
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by youngs_modulus

Mr.Gib wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 8:57 pm
ichobi wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 7:18 pm
Not sure if Matt works for [Ichobi’s magazine] or another publication, but he didn't report what he saw, he simply repeated unverified and outlandish claim without stating they were unverified claims. Can't really tell if this is the same approach that you have taken but your post suggest so. That's not journalism.

This statement:
ichobi wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 7:18 pm
When you see the chart you can choose to believe it or you don’t have to (which is how it should be).
is pathetic. Aren't you supposed to contribute something as a journalist - what is your value added? With an attitude like that you are not needed - I can see what Vittoria has to say on their website.
I definitely understand the frustration here, and I fully agree that Vittoria’s graphs are worse than useless. That said, I think you guys are going after the wrong party here. Matt Wikstrom, the CyclingTips author, is fully on your side here (at least, I strongly suspect he is). I don’t know him personally, but the guy knows why unlabeled axes are a problem. In the comments below his article, he mentions this:
Matt Wikstrom wrote:As a scientist, it’s easy to spot a good lab, and that’s what I’ve seen here in Thailand. [...] My request to see the raw numbers was turned down [...]
I looked Wikstrom up on LinkedIn; he has a Ph.D. in immunology. Of course, a Ph.D. in an unrelated field doesn’t mean much on its own, but Wikstrom has spent substantial time in a flow cytometry lab. It’s reasonable to assume that the guy knows the difference between useful data and marketing.

What’s more, he asked to see the data. He didn’t find the press materials convincing either and asked for more. Wikstrom is doing his job.

youngs_modulus
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by youngs_modulus

A quick* comment on marketers, Vittoria and the CyclingTips article:

First of all, the Vittoria graphs are abominable. They’re worse than useless. For those who don’t do a lot of quantitative work, presenting a graph with unlabeled axes is seen as first-rate evidence of incompetence. This comic illustrates the disdain earned via unlabeled axes:

Image

So yeah, the Vittoria plots are beyond meaningless. But I sincerely believe they’re not intended to be deceptive—rather, I strongly suspect those graphs were put together by a marketer and/or graphic designer who doesn’t have any scientific training. I used to work as a journalist for the main US bicycle industry trade magazine, and in that capacity I attended lots of product briefings conducted by marketing people who made sciency-sounding claims but who have no scientific background.

Because they hadn’t taken physics, they had no idea when their schpiel became nonsensical. This is sometimes known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, wherein incompetent people don’t even have the competence to realize that they’re incompetent. (Failing to grok science doesn’t make one an incompetent marketer, of course. It only makes you an incompetent scientist).

For example: back in the late ‘90s, one of the big suspension fork companies announced a new product at the Cactus Cup, which I happened to cover. The marketing guy made two claims: “lighter”—which was true—and “less heat” from damping—which was demonstrably false.

I knew he was full of it and our tech editor knew he was full of it. But the marketer didn’t know he was full of it: the engineers told him it was lighter and dissipated heat better, but he didn’t understand the difference between generating less heat and dissipating the same heat faster. Calling him out during his presentation would have been a pretty jerky thing to do; it would have humiliated the guy publicly and made us look like petty jerks. Besides, we knew what the marketing guy meant, so we published what he meant instead of what he actually said.

But we had the luxury of time, which we used to call the suspension company’s engineers and confirm that this damper dissipated heat better than its predecessor, not that it generated less heat to begin with. CyclingTips didn’t have the luxury of time, so they published what they had after the Vittoria presentation/walkthrough.

I happen to agree that the CyclingTips story is thin, and that surprised me a little. CyclingTips’ tech coverage is second to none, and on top of that they sent someone with a strong chemistry background (Dr. Wikstrom) to cover a product announcement that is largely about chemistry. On top of that, Wikstrom pressed Vittoria for more (and better) information, as was entirely appropriate. Vittoria declined to give any more information, which is their prerogative.

I wish Wikstrom had mentioned both his (positive) observations about Vittoria’s lab and his request for more info from the presenter in his article rather than in the comments, but that’s picking nits. The fact that Vittoria declined to give Wikstrom more information (whether or not the additional info included raw data) reflects poorly on Vittoria’s marketing team, not CyclingTips. It’s also not unusual for a marketer to decline to go off-script, especially if that marketer realizes that they’re out of their depth.

So yes, it was an unusually thin story for CyclingTips. But I suspect that the whole “Graphene II: Electric Boogaloo” presentation was just a high-level overview. I further suspect and that Vittoria will make more specific product announcements to the assembled journalists in the coming hours or days. CT published a low-content piece on a low-content presentation, but I imagine they intended it to be context for the more substantial announcements to come.

I could be wrong about all of this, of course, but I thought that this context might help ground our discussion here a bit.


* That’s a joke, son.

aeroisnteverything
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by aeroisnteverything

Mr.Gib wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 5:58 pm


Aeroisnteverything (and others), not withstanding your "wait and see" caveat, this type of presentation deserves no credit whatsoever. The point is the chart doesn't show anything. Consider that the chart shown is only the top 1/1000,000,000 of the whole chart. Now how big a deal are those "improvements"? That is what your fellow WW's meant by the problem with the Y axis.
I think you are misreading me, and in substance am in the same boat as you, just being a bit more diplomatic. On the presentation though: yes, it deserves no credit because there is no Y axis. BUT, they are very, very clearly trying to make some big claims with that presentation (i.e., yes, it could be that the data shows a 0.01% improvement, but they seem to WANT us to think that there is very sizeable improvement, with mileage pretty much doubling). Similarly major claims are made in the article. I find these claims incredible, in a very literal sense of that word. 40% decrease in RR would, after all, imply RR somewhere in low 7w for Corsa G+ and below 5w for Corsa Speed - obliterating any other exisiting tyre, while at the same time improving grip! What I am saying, I guess, is that I cannot wait for an actual test to see how the tyres actually perform so that Vittoria can be properly taken to task for this crap - or else a bunch of us skeptics here need to eat some crow.

ichobi
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by ichobi

I don’t think you have to wait long. The graphene 2.0 tires have already been shipped to importers and some stores probably have them already. Its been in the production line for the past few months. If it’s anything as good as claimed then lets see if it beats the gp5000 on both speed and weight.

TobinHatesYou
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by TobinHatesYou

Listed weights:
25mm GP5K TL - 300g (295g actual)
25mm Corsa G2.0 TLR - 290g

25mm GP5K clincher - 215g (221g actual)
25mm Corsa G2.0 clincher - 255g

Shame the TLR versions don't come in the para sidewall.

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Mr.Gib
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by Mr.Gib

ichobi wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:24 pm
He doesn’t work for me and we have not published the article because we find the information provided to be insufficient. Must have felt great calling people you barely know pathetic online right? You don’t even know how we work. Don’t lump all journalist together.

Cyclingtips article is thin for certain in fact it doesn’t tell anything you cant already find on Vittoria website but don’t just assume all outlet will do the same.
The statement is pathetic. Don't know you at all so yeah, no idea about you.
Not lumping all journalists together. Just calling BS when I see it.

And I still don't think you get where I am coming from:
ichobi wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:24 pm
Cyclingtips article is thin for certain in fact it doesn’t tell anything you cant already find on Vittoria website but don’t just assume all outlet will do the same.
This lame platitude and the sentiments that underly it is what leaves the average consumer badly informed. Thin? The article doesn't even qualify as an adequate report of a product release. Maybe it's just laziness - not on your part, but that of the author.

Ichobi, I do appologize if you were offended by my aggressive approach - I am sure you are a stand-up guy and a good reporter - but I won't comprimise. Vittoria's graph (hmm can't find it now) is drawn to give the impression that the new product is 50 or 100% better then the older products. When independant rolling resistance tests are done and the improvement is nowhere near Vittoria's claim, will you report that? Will anyone report that? A simple question. I think I know the answer though and it's no. But don't worry, the good folk here on WW's will be here to inform the public.

And Matt Wikstom may have a PhD but he wrote this:

"For road tyres like the Corsa and Rubino, Vittoria has overhauled this range with an emphasis on high performance. Thus, buyers can look forward to a tyre with 40% less rolling resistance when compared to the first-generation of graphene-enhanced tyres."

This is written as a statement of fact so we can only assume that this is true. No qualifiers, or caveats in the same sentence. Perhaps he has access to the proof but neglected to share it with his readers? "Thin" doesn't exactly describe the problem here.
wheelsONfire wrote: When we ride disc brakes the whole deal of braking is just like a leaving a fart. It happens and then it's over. Nothing planned and nothing to get nervous for.

Karvalo
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by Karvalo

aeroisnteverything wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 12:33 am
Similarly major claims are made in the article. I find these claims incredible, in a very literal sense of that word. 40% decrease in RR would, after all, imply RR somewhere in low 7w for Corsa G+ and below 5w for Corsa Speed - obliterating any other exisiting tyre, while at the same time improving grip! What I am saying, I guess, is that I cannot wait for an actual test to see how the tyres actually perform so that Vittoria can be properly taken to task for this crap - or else a bunch of us skeptics here need to eat some crow.
I noticed that as well. I can only imagine that what Vittoria's engineers meant is that (at best) the part of rolling resistance that is generated from the tread has been reduced by 40% - whereas total RR comes from the tread, the casing, the tube and (probably) interactions between all three.

bm0p700f
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by bm0p700f

Why not wait and see then try. Why get worked up over marketing. I have had all the size on back order since December. I could have told what was coming out.

sychen
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by sychen

bm0p700f wrote:Why not wait and see then try. Why get worked up over marketing. I have had all the size on back order since December. I could have told what was coming out.
Because internet rage is fun.

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Mr.Gib
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by Mr.Gib

Getting back on topic, great to see 30mm size in the Corsa. Great for the road disc application and the rare rim brake frame with enough space 8)

One glitch, the website shows the Corsa 30mm at 285 grams and the Corsa Control 30mm at 280 grams. Something is a bit off. (30m Corsa Control Tubless listed at 320 grams)
wheelsONfire wrote: When we ride disc brakes the whole deal of braking is just like a leaving a fart. It happens and then it's over. Nothing planned and nothing to get nervous for.

by Weenie


Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
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sethjs
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by sethjs

In theory I have the Corsa TLR 25c arriving before the wknd. Might be tempted to mount them and give them a whirl!

And strongly agree on the Para sidewall sentiment!

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