We all remember when carbon fiber was regarded as the Faberge egg of the northern classics. That all changed in 2010, and Spartacus swept the cobbled monuments on the best form we've ever seen in spring and a pair of 303s. Since then, it's been all carbon, all the time, and with the tubeless 303 NSW Carbon Disc Brake Road Wheel, Zipp's made the 303 line even more capable of tackling Cancellara's preferred race terrain. Cobblestones, limestone gravel, and the occasional patch of tarmac--all comers are welcome. Despite the advancements to rim, which is the element of the wheel that Zipp's tag line of "Speed Weaponry" is typically associated with, we're going to start here with the Cognition hub. Blasphemy, we know, but the Cognition makes a strong case for itself. We'd even go so far to suggest that the NSW's Cognition rear hub may be the most exciting innovation we've seen in factory wheels since Zipp first introduced its bulging sidewalls. The hub owes its sex appeal to Zipp's Axial Clutch freewheel design, which features two Metal Injection Molding (MIM) ratcheting rings--one mated to the freehub body and one mated to the hub body. The two rings are machined like a ratchet, so they ramp off of each other while freewheeling but engage each other during pedal input. Compared to a standard pawl design, which actually resembles a drum brake and engages from the inside out, the Axial Clutch's MIM rings engage laterally to reduce friction, so the engagement mechanism itself doesn't tax as many watts from your efforts. We're familiar with this model, as we've seen similar mechanisms on the designer hubs featured in top-end custom builds for years now, but Zipp is the first to replace the usual tensioning agent, steel springs, with magnets. This substitution further reduces friction between the ratcheting rings, making for what may be the smoothest freewheel on any mass-produced wheel. It also carries the added bonus of sounding really, really cool. The Cognition's Axia...