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The pain of progress is felt by the early adopters. Yes, the first generation of whatever new design is paradigm-changing, but the second, third, and fourth always get better and better. And the new Zipp 202 wheelset will really hurt those who own a previous iteration of these superlight climbing wheels. First of all, Zipp increased the rim depth from 24mm to 32mm which means the wheel rolls at lower drag down hills and along the flats, as well as shallow uphill grades. It is 4-6 watts more aerodynamically efficient, the result of which is that there's more energy left in your tank for climbing, where the rims are faster as well, thanks to the more aero rim depth. The difference between the new profile to old is such that if Landis had these 32mm deep 202s instead of the 24mm deep ones he rode to Morzine in 2006, maybe there'd be fewer questions about the "miraculous" performance. Everyone would have said, it was "da wheels."

The sad thing for owners of earlier-generation 202s is that not only is the rim faster, but the weight is the same and the rim is stronger. That's right, there is no penalty for the extra depth, and there's even a bonus. The bonus comes from a new way of building carbon fiber rims. Zipp calls this method Carbon Bridge construction, and it is more than just laying up piles of carbon fiber. It employs Kevlar thread stitched in a co-axial helix (think round) to bind the layers of carbon fiber at the top of each rim's sidewall. What the stitched segment does is better spread out the compressing load that the rim experiences as it nears and passes the ground. They call it a "capstone." The result is a rim that is 28% more impact resistant than earlier iterations and allows Zipp to remove material from under the tire bed (hence the identical rim weight).

The Zipp 202 is only available as a tubular. It utilizes the Zipp 255 rim. There are 20 radial spokes in the front wheel. The rear has 24 spokes, with the 12 drive side arranged in a cross-two pattern and the 12 non-drive spokes in a radial pattern. All spokes are straight-pull Sapim X-Ray with aluminum nipples. The rim width is 23mm. The cassette body can come with Campagnolo splines or Shimano/SRAM splines for the appropriate cassettes. The hub bearings can be upgraded to ceramic. The front wheel weighs 470g the rear 590g for a total wheel weight of 1060g.