Campagnolo Pista Carbon Track Tubular Wheel - Rear 120mm

Campagnolo Pista Carbon Track Tubular Wheel - Rear 120mm is Campagnolo's dedicated track racing wheel, built for the velodrome rather than the road. Campagnolo has been building components and wheels in Vicenza, Italy since 1933, and the Pista name carries that racing heritage into a purpose-built track wheel meant for sprint events, pursuit races, and the tactical back-and-forth of disciplines like keirin. Campagnolo designed this generation of Pista to be accessible to a wider range of racers than just the professional ranks, positioning it as a legitimate option for both up-and-coming track riders and top-level competitors rather than a training-only wheel. This is the 120mm rear wheel, built to pair with a matching front wheel on a fixed-gear track frame.

The rim is a 65mm-deep unidirectional carbon fiber design, deep enough to deliver a real aerodynamic advantage at velodrome speeds while staying stiff enough to handle the acceleration and standing starts track racing demands. At a 27.4mm external width, the rim is sized specifically around tubular tires rather than clinchers, which keeps the wheel light and lets it hold the precise, glued tire interface that track racing has relied on for decades. Campagnolo builds the spokes and nipples into the wheel with aerodynamics as a first consideration rather than an afterthought: the spoke heads sit inside the hub body instead of protruding from the flange, and the nipples sit inside the rim rather than at the surface, both details aimed at keeping air moving cleanly over the wheel at sprint speed.

This rear wheel uses 24 aero-sectioned spokes in a 12 J-bend plus 12 J-bend pattern, built to handle the torque a rider puts through a rear wheel during a standing start or a sprint effort without twisting or losing tension. The hub itself uses a double-threaded flip-flop design at 120mm spacing, so a rider can mount two sprockets on opposite sides and switch gearing for a different event, or a different opponent, without swapping wheels entirely. Inside, Campagnolo runs its CULT ceramic bearing system, a design exclusive to Campagnolo's higher-end wheels and cranksets that uses ceramic balls running in polymer cages against stainless steel races. Campagnolo says that setup cuts rolling resistance well below a standard sealed bearing, which on a track wheel translates directly into speed a rider doesn't have to generate themselves.

Within Campagnolo's track lineup, the Pista sits as the more versatile, more practical option compared to the Ghibli, Campagnolo's dedicated time trial and pursuit wheel built around maximum aerodynamics ahead of everything else. The Pista gives up a little of that outright aero edge in exchange for better handling and easier day-to-day use — transport, maintenance, and mounting are all simpler on the Pista, and it holds up better in tactical, close-quarters disciplines like keirin, where a rider needs to react and adjust position rather than just hold an aero tuck. It's built to work as a matched pair or mixed with a Ghibli front wheel, depending on what an athlete's event calls for.

Campagnolo builds every Pista wheelset by hand, with a specialized operator assembling and truing the wheel before it goes through 100 percent electronic quality control. Campagnolo lists the complete wheelset, paired with the 100mm front hub version, at a claimed 1,672 grams — light for a 65mm carbon track wheelset and a meaningful factor when every gram matters on a standing start. This is a wheel built for racing at the velodrome, not general road use, and it's priced and engineered accordingly: a dedicated track tool for a rider who already knows the discipline they're training and racing for.