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I was wondering if anyone had a review or thoughts on the Vittoria EVO XN's. I thought I would give the file tread pattern a try. I noticed Jonathan Page has been running them in his last 3 races with very good success. I'd love to hear what people think of file tread in general if not this tire specifically.

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I just ordered one for the rear wheel. I'll let you know how they do in the dry/hardpack/grassy Florida courses.
Good on hardpack and wet soil. When it gets sloppy Challenge and Dugast are much better. When its sloppy I use the better tires and used the Vittoria for the backup wheels/bike. Saves you a bit of $ that way. The Vittoria is likely more durable than the more supple tubulars.
He is using Challenge XS file treads. Not Vittoria. The knock on Vit has been the rubber compound being tufo-esque hard and slick. I would theorize that this would be much less of an issue (perhaps even a plus, eg hard tread wont wear down) on a file tread tire.

Jerry

Oh - he never ran his grifos backwards either. That would have been Jon Hamblen maybe.
What about the Vittoria 290tpi EVO XG tires? We were thinking about getting a few sets of them for rentals.
I ran the tubular versions of XN and 32 XGs last year in all the Chicagoland races without any issues. I ran a XN on the back and a XG on the front. Tire pressure varied and only slid out 2 or three times and most of them were just dumb mistakes due to lack of oxygen...

For the most part all our races were dry, except for the season finale which was run in below freezing and path that was cleared from several inches of snow. It was slick, and I stayed upright for the race with XGs on front and back. I am really impressed with these tires and highly recommend them.
Jim- Chicago boy here too. I am curious to see what the new venues will look like. It sounds like DeKalb will pretty technical.
The synthetis tread on Vittoria tires is absolutely awful unless all the racing you do is on dry pavement or gravel. The tire bodies have very little flex and do not work well at low pressures and have little or no twist. Tubular CX tires want to have softer natural rubber tread and supple and plyable bodies so that they will soak up bumps and actually twist to keep the tread in contact with the ground when cornering. Wider diameter tires are best for bumpy surfaces, narrower tires are best for mud. Ridem with the lowest PSI you can without bottoming out on the rim, this will change based on your weight and the course.

Best CX tubulars. The first three are very close in performance.

1. Dugast
2. FMB
3. Challenge
4. Tufo
5. Anything else
6. Vittoria
Vittoria XN are excellent on hard pack.infact I really liked them until I did a kremesse with em and unless you have 'em 55psi+ well I was having issue with pinch flats....... and they wear quick...... and they pretty much suck for anything wet. unless yer using them to commute and wanna throw yer bike around the park on yer way home. There's alot of tires out there that Im sure are nicer for the same thing. and the same price
supertick,

were you wondering about the clincher or the tubular versions?

the 290tpi tubulars we sampled were much more supple than the the 220tpi tubulars. one upside with the vittorias worth mentioning is that they allow folks on a budget to get into tubulars cheaper than other companies, and still experience benefits of avoid pinch flats.
I have had very bad luck with the xg tubulars. They don't hold on to grass, and the two I had in the rear basically pinch flatted. I don't know if I got a bad batch or what, but they died, no thorns, no cuts, just dead. It is worth the money to upgrade to challenge. They aren't that much more, but they grip like a mountain bike tire, and are much more durable.

The challenge file tread also has side knobs, opposed to the vittoria's which are only file tread. If you are looking for a semi-slick clincher the Ritchey speedmax is worth trying.

my .02
the new vittoria xn's have added the side knobs. i think they made that change this spring.
Well, I just ran the vittoria XN (2008) tread on my SS at a Livermore race this past weekend. Half grass, half gravel, looong paved/dirt straight. I have to say, I was impressed. Granted I had pretty low expectations, but they really hooked well on the grass, were fine on gravel and obviously fast on the long road section. Each lap I would get more aggressive carving the grass turns until I could hear the grass tearing as I two wheels drifted. They never gave way. The only section they gave me trouble was a really loose gravel section. Other than that, I liked them.

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