Top Secret. Every manufacturer that I have ever visited has a Top Secret, behind the curtain section that is corded off to only those with the proper clearance. Lightweight goes beyond any limited access areas that I have seen in our industry. For good reason, Lightweight is more than just a wheel manufacturer. They are a carbon company first; wheels are just one of the products that they produce in their factories. Lightweight is contracted to build satellites, MRI equipment, airplane components, Formula One parts and a slew of other really cool stuff that requires exacting manufacturing to tolerances measured within 1000th of a millimeter. Think what would happen if the MRI track that the camera rides on is out of true or if a satellite camera mount is off by just a hair. Lightweight lives on the razor’s edge of tolerances like no other company in our industry.
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Tag Archives: standard
Lightweight Wheels
ITT: Instant Torque Transfer. That is the best way to explain how riding Lightweight Standard wheels feel. I have around 4000 miles on a set that I took to France last summer to ride in the Alps. I first noticed the ITT, a.k.a. acceleration, on climbs when I got out of the saddle. Then I noticed that when riding with the same group that I normally ride with, other riders were shifting to an easier gear at the base of a climb sooner than I was with the Lightweights. Once I got to know the wheels better, I realized how easy it was to change speed on a climb without changing gears. Speed adjustments were simple and easy by just pushing a little harder on the pedals. I know that sounds simplistic, but it typically takes a lot of effort, mental and physical, to accelerate a wheel when you are setting pace on a climb at your anaerobic threshold. Not so with the Lightweights.