British cycling wheel brand Parcours has unveiled its newest wheelsets, billed as its fastest ever. The new wheels were developed following a research project in association with Nottingham Trent University and Dr Steve Faulkner.

Offering a fusion of speed and stability, the new Chrono wheelset (68.6mm front, 75.7mm rear) is positioned as a versatile race day wheelset option for triathletes, time trialists, or road racers. Maintaining the aerodynamics of the previous generation wheelset, the new Chrono claims an improvement of over 17% in crosswind stability when compared with the previous iteration. Aerodynamically optimised around a 28mm tyre, the Chrono wheelset is also tubeless-ready and disc-brake specific to accompany a wider rim profile.

The Chrono Max (83.6mm deep), is positioned as Parcours’ fastest ever front wheel. Developed specifically for a 28mm tyre, the Chrono Max is also tubeless-ready and disc-brake specific. Claimed to save over 4W versus Parcours’ previous generation front wheel, the Chrono Max handles like a shallower rim profile, allowing it to maintain the handling stability of the older 77mm model, despite the extra rim depth.

Parcours also launch its first full carbon rear disc wheel to be optimised for wide tyres, the new Disc2. With an internal rim width of 22.5mm, the Disc2 rear wheel can also be run with a tyre up to 30mm wide with no aerodynamic penalty. The Disc2 saves over 120g in weight over the previous Parcours disc wheel.

All three models have been designed using ‘#thinkwider technology’, developed following the results of an in-depth scientific study carried out by Parcours in association with the Sports Engineering department at Nottingham Trent University and Dr Steve Faulkner.

According to the company, this research found that real world yaw angles – the angle between a cyclist’s direction of motion and the relative wind vector – experienced by the front and rear wheel are consistently different by an average of 1.5 degrees, giving rise to the engineering of differential profiles for the front/rear rims.

The front, U-shaped, blunt rim design provides aerodynamics at the higher yaw angles observed at the front wheel, while having the added benefit of enhancing cross wind stability. The rear, V-shaped, sharper rim profile is used to optimise aerodynamics at the lower yaw angles it would experience.

Dov Tate, founder of Parcours, said “We’re really excited to be launching our new Chrono, Chrono Max and Disc2 wheel line ups, bringing the fastest wheels we’ve ever ridden to market.

“This is the culmination of our biggest and most in-depth development project to date, bringing together a number of partnerships with leading names in both the academic and athletic worlds. We can’t wait to see how our riders get on this week in Kona on our #thinkwider wheels.”