J'ai visité le centre où Pirelli teste ses pneus en secret

[00:00:15]Inside.

[00:00:18]>> [music] [music] [music] >> CCL's latest root.

[00:01:18]Alberto [music] [music] Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech.

[00:02:20]So, Alberto, can you tell us who you are and what's your background? So hi Alberto, we are here in Sicily in the testing facilities for Pirelli. We perform test for all the plant in the world both for motorcycle division and also for the cycling division. I am the the manager for the cycling testing department and uh here we we perform all the kind of test that we need to do for the bicycle tires. I was a razor. I stop because uh we need to always improve on the working side.

[00:02:58]>> Can you tell us about how you perform the test and what's the kind of protocol for the test?

[00:03:05]>> So we have different kind of test. We start from the dry handling behavior then we do the wet handling behavior.

[00:03:14]Then we have some other specific test and for last part we also have the the mileage test where [music] we check how the the tires wears out.

[00:03:24]>> So you are testing the tires from the the factories. They send you the tires.

[00:03:29]>> Yes, we we received all the tires from our different plant around the world and we we are in contact with our R&D engineer.

[00:03:40]They send us the tire without telling what we are testing. But we know what kind of uh type of tire, but we don't know the specification of the compound, the >> the pattern.

[00:03:54]>> The pattern. Yeah. The pattern. We see the pattern, but we don't know what's under that.

[00:03:59]>> Okay. The idea is to test the tire. So to make sure that uh during the riding it performs the way it's supposed to perform. Yes, we we are the people that we ride the bike. So, we try to subjectivize every aspect of a tire. So, it's something that it's hard difficult to see with the with indoor lap testing machine. So we are the people that can feel [music] their really tiny different in a tire and then we are the people that can produce this feeling with the engineer of the R&D to to match this feeling and have the best tire.

[00:04:42]>> So I imagine that to have this feeling you need to be a very good rider.

[00:04:48]>> Yes. You also have to be trained >> to be to feel this difference. But it's also you can achieve during lots of years of uh of riding.

[00:05:00]>> And so how many kilometers do you ride every year for example?

[00:05:05]>> If we have to do an average since 15 years I would say 25,000 per year since I did most in the past and now we are going to do here a bit less.

[00:05:20]>> Wow. Okay. And so you are testing the so the motorcycle tires but it's not your division. So you test the cycling road cycling tires and mountain bike tires.

[00:05:32]>> Yes. Cycling, mountain bikes, gravel, but we also test urban tires. Okay.

[00:05:38]>> Every kind of tires that has name Pirelli, we we have to test them. So every also every sides of the tires not only one sides and then we do the other sides without testing.

[00:05:52]>> And so you also have a team with you to test the tires.

[00:05:56]>> Yes, we are a team of four people. All of us really passionate about cycling.

[00:06:03]>> Why are we here on like here in Jerry?

[00:06:07]We are here because in Sicily you know the weather is always good also in January, February, December where in other place you may have wet roads, cold weather. Here it's good for all the year long and also because we have lots of different surfaces, different asphalt in a really narrow place. So you test on the road, you test uh the mountain bike and you have different uh test tracks.

[00:06:39]>> Yes, we have different tracks for every type of uh bicycle.

[00:06:45]>> Okay. So now we are going to see how you prepare the tires for the testing.

[00:06:54]>> This is our little um workshop where we prepare our um our test. So now we are going to prepare the test that uh we will do. So these are the the tires.

[00:07:07]When we receive tires from our plant, we we don't know anything about them. We just have um to to weight them to and to put outside some numbers that will um it is for us like the name of the tie we are going to we're going [music] to test. So we write down this uh this number also on the outside of the tire >> because when then when we mount the tire we have to identify which one is the the one that we are testing. As you will see we prepare all the tires at the same times [clears throat] >> before the test. All the tires that we are going to test have the same conditioning time. So we prepare them before and then we go to to our proving grounds.

[00:08:23]resistance.

[00:08:30]So normally when we run test we try to keep the same pressure for all the test.

[00:08:37]We know our pressure personally. Every tester know is pressure. Our goal is to keep every time the same pressure. This is why we measure it before the test but also after the test, we measure the pressure again. So if you notice some difference in comfort. It could be because the difference of the tire or because the pressure change. Another important thing is that all the measurement must be done by only one person. So he knows how to to do them and not creating confusing results. So he has his own method. Yes, he knows the process and we have a methodology also to to take the the measurement.

[00:09:20]>> In this case when we are in the mountain we we need to have an ambulance for us.

[00:09:26]>> An ambulance.

[00:09:27]>> Yes.

[00:09:27]>> Okay.

[00:09:27]>> We we hope never to to need them but uh we are ready for everything.

[00:09:32]>> Okay. Just because we are testing prototypes and tire so we never know.

[00:09:37]>> Yeah. You know what's inside the tire.

[00:09:40]So normally they test also indoor >> but for protocol you need to have a first ID.

[00:09:58]Fore started single track is a typical street of um in in the antenna.

[00:10:28]>> Uh the particular is said we testing the grip feeling in in this in this road and the structor.

[00:10:57]Minimum acceptable protocol.

[00:11:36]As we saw this morning, we also for the road part, we have our different behavior test. We have the drive behavior [music] test that for example, this is one road that we use mostly for our test. As we already see this morning, we mount all the tires. We have everything ready and then we compare only on the downhill part. Then we compare every specification of the tire to see the difference. Here for example, we have long turns. So we can evaluate how the bike behave [music] while leaning. So we can concentrate on the leaning, stabilize the leaning and see what's happening while leaning in a let me say safe condition because it's a big road. We have to wear also the the protection. We also never know what's happening in our prototypes. So for our safety, we are used to wear this kind of protections.

[00:12:27]>> So you are probably the only road cyclist wearing this kind of protection.

[00:12:33]>> Now who knows in the future maybe every cyclist also on the road must wear something.

[00:12:39]>> Handling, cornering, speed also speed capability >> and the the rolling feeling. You feel when you compare this tire, you feel if you are going faster or slower. So you can evaluate like a feeling. Then you compare these results with the Hindor laboratory testing. And 100% of the time we can match the results. So if we feel that the tire [music] is faster or slower, then we have the matching results from the indoor lab that says this roll faster or not.

[00:13:19]Okay. So, what do I need to do to um feel more the tire to to be a tester for P? What do I need to do?

[00:13:27]>> You have to to know how to compare the tires. Important part is to do the protocol just to be able to see one tire then the other one. What's the difference between the first, the second, then the third and then again?

[00:13:44]So it just you know how to compare the different specification back to back testing.

[00:13:50]>> Yes.

[00:14:01]So thank you Alberto. You're welcome.

[00:14:03]Thank you so much for uh giving me this opportunity to [music] to discover the process of testing the tire and your your work. It's uh it was very interesting for me and yeah I hope that the audience also find it interesting.