Following the success of the 808 NSW, which was ridden to victory at the Pro Men’s Ironman® World Championships and the Elite Women’s UCI Team Time Trial World Championships, Zipp is proud to launch our second wheelset in the NSW Series, the Zipp 404 NSW Carbon Clincher. Our advanced development engineers in our top-secret lab, known as The Nest, have delivered a wheelset with improved braking performance, exceptional aerodynamic efficiency, and unparalleled crosswind stability for our most popular and best-selling rim depth. Like the 808 NSW, the 404 NSW also makes use of our Cognition hubset for increased durability and exceptionally low freehub drag.
No matter where you ride, the 404 NSW is engineered to make that ride faster. With a rim depth of 58mm, the 404 NSW is designed as a do-everything wheelset that is adept at climbing and maintaining speed on the flats; a wheel strong enough to handle the Spring Classics, but light enough to inspire sprints out of corners.
With its advanced aerodynamics, developed using 42 different CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) concept studies and months in the wind tunnel; the 404 NSW’s unrivaled crosswind stability saves watts that would have been spent keeping the bike straight, and provides unequivocal confidence for high speed descending.
When it comes time to slow for a corner, our NSW exclusive Showstopper™ brake track stands ready to deliver the best modulation and shortest stopping distances available, regardless of weather conditions or the length of the descent.
Simply put, the 404 NSW represents the cutting-edge of carbon clincher wheel technology delivered straight from The Nest, where Zipp’s advanced development engineers design the world’s fastest wheels.
COGNITION™ HUBSET
Every time a conventional hubset starts to coast, friction within the freehub ratchet mechanism works like a drum brake to slow the rider down. With Cognition’s Axial Clutch™ technology, we’ve reduced this drag by disengaging the ratchet mechanism when coasting. With less internal hub drag a rider can pedal less when drafting in a headwind, achieve higher speeds when coasting in an aero tuck, or opt to stop pedaling a moment sooner before entering a corner and bank that wattage for use exiting the corner. Axial Clutch technology also allows riders to maintain speed through corners that don’t require braking input, thereby increasing corner exit speeds.
Inside the Axial Clutch mechanism we use magnets, rather than steel springs, to move and engage our light weight Metal Injection Molded (MIM) ratchet rings for unmatched reliability and consistent operation. With 36 points of engagement that all interlock simultaneously, there isn’t a more secure freehub mechanism on the market.
Our Axial Clutch freehub mechanism is also compatible with XDR drivers. This gives riders the option to select a 10-42 cassette to assemble a 1x11 drivetrain with an equivalent range to either a compact or standard road double drivetrain.
A star-flanged straight-pull hubshell design on the rear hub distributes the load placed on the hub flange away from the bearings. We’ve also developed a unique scalloped edge hubshell design for our front hub. This scalloped design maintains the bearing bore diameter when high radial spoke tension is applied. Both of these hubshell design elements ensure that bearings quietly stay in place, roll faster, last longer, and provide a laterally stiffer hub. About those bearings, we’ve chosen Swiss stainless steel bearings specially made to our specs to provide the longest lasting, lowest friction performance available.
ImPress™
We’ve employed Zipp’s ImPress™ graphics technology, which prints graphics directly on the wheel, to help allow the dimples to do what they were designed to do – control vortex shedding, the rate at which air sheds off the wheel. Managing this is crucial to stability. Like the 808 NSW, ImPress graphics also give the 404 NSW a distinctive stealthy look while keeping the rim as light as possible.
ABLC SawTooth™ Technology
Our new Sawtooth dimple design consists of 12 nodes that are precisely clocked to start aerodynamic shearing at a rate of 50hz at a rider speed of 20mph. Sawtooth accomplishes this by inducing small sheet vortices that shed at a low magnitude, but at a higher natural frequency, thus decreasing the laminar bubble effect on the aerodynamically shielded side of the rim’s profile to further reduce high yaw drag and improve crosswind stability. That crosswind stability then imparts peace of mind when the weather turns south while saving watts that would have been expended while attempting to hold your line.
Showstopper™
When it comes to braking, “good for a carbon rim” wasn’t good enough for the 404 NSW. We wanted braking performance that was better than aluminum rims, and we’ve achieved that goal. Our industry leading silicon carbide Showstopper™ brake track delivers unmatched stopping power and modulation regardless of weather conditions or the length of the descent. With Showstopper™ braking performance, you’ll need to find another excuse not to ride on rainy days.
BORN OF SCIENCE. REALIZED BY HAND.
Zipp 404 NSW was developed using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) post-processing software and multiple wind-tunnel trips, including the Aerodynamic Bike Testing Facility at the ARC Wind Tunnel, a short drive from Zipp’s Indianapolis facility. We do this because, as one of our advanced development engineers, Dave Morse, is fond of saying, “The wind tunnel will never be replaced as the gut check for wheel design.” The advanced development engineers at The Nest took that data and created the rim shape that became the 404 NSW.
Zipp 404 NSW rims are laid up, molded, and drilled in the USA by Zipp technicians. Our expert wheel builders then hand lace the rims to our Portuguese-made Cognition hubset using Belgian Sapim CX-Ray spokes and Secure-Lock nipples to ensure precision alignment and even spoke tension. The end result is a handcrafted wheelset that stays fast and true for years to come.
