The first of what will probably be a few, or maybe even many, product reviews

  I've been continuing my quest for the perfect large-ish volume, supple, fast, fairly lightweight, and otherwise super-nice roadish tire, and have come up with a very good one.  For the better part of this winter, I have been riding the 700x38C version of the Vittoria Randonneur Hyper tires.  They are reasonably light (I don't have a scale, but they feel pretty light, especially for their size), and their casing is very supple.  Puncture protection is provided by what Vittoria calls "Triple Protection", which I guess is light but still supposed to be pretty thorn-resistant.  I've had two flats on the tires over the course of about three months: one from a big 'ol piece of glass that gave the tire a pretty respectable cut, and one from I'm-not-sure-what (it just happened and I haven't checked yet).  This is as many flats as I had on the Green Label version of Rivendell's Jack Brown tires, which I talked about in another post.  Those tires are decidedly thin–in both tread and casing–and I would think that "Triple Protection" would be more flat resistant, but whatever: they're still pretty flat resistant, just not in the same way a Specialized Armadillo would be.
  But really, I'm not as concerned with flat resistance as I am with the tire's weight, comfort and rolling resistance, and in those categories, the Rando Hypers score high.  I've been riding them at about 60 PSI in the rear and 55 PSI up front, and at that pressure they roll quite fast and soak up the bulk of crappy-pavement and gravel road bumps very well.  They seem to roll very fast, though I have noticed a fair amount of road noise–the sound of the tire rolling–and I can't quite decide whether this is the sound of slow, or just OK, but in any case, I know it's not the sound of really slow because these tires are not slow.  They are a bit slower and less comfortable than the Green Label Jack Browns, and much faster and pretty similar comfort-wise to the Schwalbe Marathon Supremes.  Vittoria says that they have "Aqua-flow" tread, which appears to be a shallow siping that I would expect to see on a racing tire (these are essentially slick tires).  I like that the siping leaves the center of the tire bare and continues down the sidewall, which addresses a complaint I have about the Marathon Supremes and their deep siping across the center of the tire (I mentioned this in that earlier post about tires); however, with aqua in the name, I would think that these tires would be a little bit better in wet conditions than they are.  I have had some minor slide issues when cornering hard on wet roads–not anywhere near as bad as the Jack Browns–but these do not compare with the solid cornering in all conditions that the Marathon Supremes have.  In dry conditions, the Rando Hypers have a very predictable, very smooth and confident cornering feel.  I have leaned these tires as hard as any tire I have ridden, and never (in dry conditions) have I felt like I couldn't have easily and safely, leaned them even further.
  Some other features that I like are the reflective sidewall strip and the tread that runs from one bead to the other–like the Marathon supreme–which basically eliminates the sidewall area or at least that weaker spot that most tires have where the tread meets that sidewall material.  They have  a folding bead and are made in Thailand.  Overall, highly recommended.