Lightweight : Overview

Why we love Lightweight wheels

The two most important aspects to how your bike will ride and handle are the frame and wheels. Lightweights are expensive – there is no denying that. But buying good wheels is the single most important performance upgrade you can make – and you can’t buy better than Lightweight.

Lightweight wheels have been ridden by a who’s who of the Pro Cycling scene and were developed and improved in close cooperation with the professional riders who use them in every race. Over the years a lot has been learned a lot about the demands pro riders make of their wheels: Most of all they desire stiff wheels. Pros fear power loss in the rear wheel, and they demand a stiff front wheel for precise handling. A super-light wheel sacrificing stiffness only accelerates well in the lab. The theoretical advantages brought about by the low weight are lost in real-life race situations. When racing hard – be it in the final sprint or during a mid-race attack – pros unanimously prefer very stiff wheels.

Number two on the priority list are excellent aerodynamics, and finally, low weight should also be achieved. Lightweight listened, and we developed their wheels accordingly. They are by far the stiffest wheels of their kind, offer excellent aerodynamics and fascinatingly low weight.

It is a fact of life that pro riders are forced to use sponsored team equipment when they race. This fact makes the omnipresence of Lightweight’s in the pro peleton all the more remarkable – high profile pro riders have it written in their contract that will use sponsored wheels in lesser races, but when the season hots up they will use Lightweights. You simply cannot get a better product testimonial than that !

Technical highlights

All wheels are 100% hand made in Germany. These high-tech wheels consist of an all-carbon rim with a lightweight foam core. The hub body is made from carbon fiber and the spokes are made from carbon- and kevlar-threads.

Rims

The Standard and Obermayer rim is 19.5 mm wide and 52.8 mm high. As the wheels are mainly used in time-trials and difficult mountain stages as during the Tour de France, the carbon fiber braking surfaces provide adequate brake performance. The rim surface is sealed with a special clear coat. The wheels’ excellent acceleration is due to the extremely low mass on their outer perimeter: No heavy screws or spoke eyelets are needed to hold the spokes. In this design, rim, spokes and hub are laminated as one piece, forming an extremely stiff unit. This leads to a more trouble free wheel needing no maintenance – and one which accelerates like no other!

Memory chip

All wheels now come standard with a memory chip laminated into the rim. It weighs only 0.2 g and contains a unique tracking number with information about the production process, temperature cycles, trueness and much more

Wheel magnet

All Lightweight spoked wheels feature a special Samarium-Cobalt magnet laminated into the rim. At only 0.8 g this is the most radical weight savings you can get, while at the same time improving wheel trueness and reducing drag.

Spokes

Lightweight’s unique spokes are woven from carbon and kevlar threads. Each spoke can hold up to 1200 kg without a significant increase in length. Due to this enormous strength Lightweight can build the wheels with much higher preload than ordinary wire spokes which lengthen greatly under load. Thus, the wheels offer unsurpassed lateral stiffness. Even Lightweight’s 12-spoke wheel at only 460 g is stiffer than a conventional 32-spoke wheel.

Disc wheels

Lightweight disk wheels are unique in that they are the only wheels in which the carbon fibers are oriented perfectly in the direction of the forces to be transmitted. All rotating forces originate at the hub and have to be transmitted to the tire. The lateral forces originate at the contact patch of the tire and must be transferred to the hub. Carbon fibers can only transfer forces if they are positioned in the direction of the load, as they can only transmit pulling forces. In this regard they behave like ordinary wire spokes.

Lightweight disks are designed like spoked wheels: Many carbon fiber threads connect the hub to the rim. The threads leave the hub shell tangentially – in the direction of the forces to be transmitted. No ordinary carbon fiber mats are used.

Lightweight’s sandwich design uses no fibers that transfer no loads. The spoke threads are wound around two thin foam cores. As a last step, a thin white layer is used to cover the entire wheel. The top layer does not transfer any weight, which is why it can be kept very thin. This saves weight and in turn multiplies the types of competitions our wheels are suitable for. Please handle the wheels with care to avoid harming the finish. But the end result is a wheel which is both stronger and lighter than other disk wheels.

The two sides of our disks are not parallel planes, but slightly concave. Tests have proven this to be the superior shape, producing less drag. In addition, the wheels are made stronger as the whole width of the hub is used to support the wheel.
The brake surface is made from carbon fiber as well. Together with special brake pads suitable for carbon rims, the disks deliver excellent brake performance. Aside from being heavier, aluminum rims would create other problems: As aluminum expands at a much greater rate than carbon fiber when heated, the rims could separate from the rest of the wheel, making the rim unsafe to ride in the long run.