Update: These rims are now available, but they are very limited in supply.

I wish I had more time to blog about these, but I thought at least I could post some photos.

• C-4 rims (not available to the public yet)
• M5 flanged front 24-hole
• ExtraLite SX rear 24-hole
• Sapim CX-Ray spokes
• 1153 grams

I haven’t ridden these yet so I can’t give any ride feedback. The rims are very narrow and shallow. They look great, but 24/28 might be the way to go.

This is sort of fun technology — I’m using an eye-fi SD card in my Panasonic DMC-LX3 which is uploading photos to flickr via my CradlePoint portable router connected to my Verison USB720 EVDO USB Modem. I then used Flickr Slide Show to create a Flash slide show of the images.

So now I can walk around the Interbike 2009 Expo shooting photos and they appear live on this blog almost instantaneously. I’m not sure yet if you’ll have to refresh this page, but you probably will, to see the new images. I’m also not sure if the Flash movie will cache the images and XML making it difficult to see the new ones as they arrive, but we will find out soon enough.

If you’d like me to shoot anything in particular, feel free to send me a text message and I’ll try to accommodate your requests. 303 882-8083

I generally ride at 4:30 AM, so when I stared out at 3:00 PM on this sunny June day in Colorado, I figured that maybe I felt off because my body wasn’t used to riding in the heat of the day. I literally felt drunk, or maybe that’s an exaggeration and it was more like I was tipsy, as I started my ride.

I headed up our closest switchback climb in Boulder, Colorado — Flagstaff Road. As I was climbing I just felt off balance, not exactly dizzy, but not quite all there. Then about 2 miles into the climb I looked down and noticed my water bottle cage move in relationship to my pedals. I immediately thought about a recent repair I’d done to my bike to resolve one of those bottom bracket creaks that ends up having noting to do with your bottom bracket. (This is the case with 90% of BB creaks, in my experience.) The day before this ride I spent about an hour trying to diagnose a creak, and in the process of elimination I removed the downtube coupler on my Ritchey Break-Away Ti/Carbon frame and cleaned everything, greased it up, and reinstalled it. This didn’t end up solving the creak, but it was one of the dozen-plus things I did to the bike before finding the culprit; the creak was caused by a set of  bolts that go from the rear dropouts up into the seatstays being loose. (If you have one of these frames I recommend checking these bolts periodically. I didn’t even know they existed.)

Anyway, back to my ride. I’ve always had a little fear tucked away in the back of my head about what would happen if that relatively small coupler were to fail while riding, and as I jumped off of my bike I was almost positive that I was experiencing just that — a broken coupler. But to my surprise, the little black clamp was right in place with no obvious sign of damage. So I flipped the bike back upright, put it down on the pavement and pushed on one pedal while holding the seat and the bars; the classic bogus test that strangers do to your bike as they say “Let’s see how stiff this puppy is”. Let’s just say that the puppy didn’t pass this test; the BB shell moved about 5 inches to the side with very little pressure on the pedal.

I can’t believe that I missed the actual damage to the frame when I was initially inspecting the downtube coupler, but I guess I was focused on a small area and not even considering other possible issues. Also I had the bike entirely upside-down and from that vantage the damage was obscured by the BB shell.

Here are a few photos of the frame:

I’m no frame builder, but it looks to me like there was a cold weld on one side of the seattube/BB joint, and that it failed there first, and then migrated around to the other side where it tore the titanium.

Now to the happy ending. I purchased the frame at ExcelSports.com and they took the frame back from me, without even giving me a suspicious look as I said the famous “I was just riding along” words,  and sent the frame to Ritchey. A week later Excel called me and said “Nico, your new frame is here.” I LOVE the bike, and I’m happy to keep riding it. I love the customer service I got from Excel, and from Ritchey, and I’m glad that it wasn’t the little coupler that failed. And I’m really glad it was my bike that was off, and not my brain. (My balance is fine for now…)

This makes me think of the movie Spinal Tap… “But this cassette goes up to eleven!”

We just got our first shipment of Campy 11-Speed Aluminum Cassettes from Recon. They are BEAUTIFULLY machined, and quite light. They are not as light as the 10-speed, but I’m sure that’s just due to the additional metal for the 11th cog. I’m not sure if most cassette weights are with the lockring or without, so I’m posting a photo of both. We have the cassettes in 11-23, 11-25 and 11-27. All are silver.

We should be getting 11-speed titanium Recon cassettes in a few weeks.

We haven’t had time to do anything other than unpack and photograph these stems. They aren’t shipping the long or the short stems yet, but we’ve got 2 of each of the middle range (10cm, 11cm,  12cm). They come in two styles, and I think they both look fabulous. Sorry for the lack of a review, but we will try to get to it soon. They are light, but not crazy light by any means. They look and feel like jems.

The white faced one on the scale (120 gr) is a 10cm, and the black faced one (129 gr) is a 12cm.

The stems are all +/- 6 degrees.

Edge plans to release 3 more sizes: 75mm, 90mm and 130mm. So the full range will be: 75mm, 90mm, 100mm, 110mm, 120mm and 130mm. But they don’t have a release date yet and it might be several month out before we get any. Edge says the stems have been hugely popular and selling like hot cakes, which is great.

I believe we have the only set of BB30 cups for Lightning Cranks in existence right now. The beauty of the system is that the cranks are exactly the same for BB30 and for standard frames, they just use different cups. The BB30 cups press into a BB30 frame, whereas with the standard Lightning setup the cups thread into the frame. Here are a few photos to whet your appetite:

We’ve put on hold, at least temporarily, our quest to build the lightest wheels in the world. (See our 715 gram wheel project.) For our next few wheel projects we thought we’d explore what reasonable wheels could be built for all around road racing — wheels that are sturdy enough to use on rough roads, light enough for climbing, aero enough to be efficient at higher speeds, and reasonably priced. For the first set we decided to use the new EDGE 1.45 tubular rims, and later this week we will do a set using EDGE 1.68 tubular rims. The 1.45 rims were recently introduced (replacing the great EDGE 1.38 rims) and while we’ve sold a few sets of the clincher version, this is the first set of tubular rims we’ve had the chance to play with.

Front wheel:

• EDGE 1.45 tubular rim, 20 hole
• ExtraLite SX front hub with ceramic bearings
• Pillar 1422 bladed titanium spokes
• Pillar internal aluminum nipples

Rear wheel:

• EDGE 1.45 tubular rim, 24 hole
• ExtraLite SX rear hub with ceramic bearings (Shimano cassette)
• Pillar 1422 bladed titanium spokes (non-drive side)
• Sapim CX-Ray bladed steel spokes (drive side)
• Pillar internal aluminum nipples

We decided to use steel spokes on the drive side of the rear wheel rather than titanium spokes to build a stiffer and stronger wheel. The Sapim CX-Ray spokes are about 1g heavier per spoke than the titanium spokes, so this adds about 12 grams to the weight of the wheel set, which seemed like a worthwhile trade. We used silver Sapim CX-Ray spokes so as to match the look of the titanium spokes and I must say, I think they look great.

We chose the ExtraLite SX front hub over the M5 flanged or straight-pull because it nicely matched the rear, and because it feels smoother and more robust than the M5. Again, if our goal were to make the lightest wheels, we would have opted for the M5 flanged, but that’s not intent with these wheels. Going with the M5 flanged front hub would have shaved another 17 grams off of the weight of the wheel set.

We went with 20/24 spokes for strength and stiffness reasons. My gut feeling is that these wheels would be fine for someone up to about 180 lbs, and beyond that you’d probably want to go with 24/28 spokes, and maybe ditch the ti spokes in favor of all steel spokes. And on the other end, for riders under 160 lbs, you could probably go with 18/20 spokes and maybe ditch the steel spokes in the rear wheel. Unfortunately it’s not a simple equation of rider weight, it also comes down to riding style and longevity expectations.

In the past we’ve mostly posted photos of wheels we built up for customers, but these wheels we built as stock wheels and they are available for purchase if someone wants them. And if no one buys them then I’ll just have to use them myself — drag…. (Please don’t tell my wife)

There are other wheels out there that have a similar profile, and similar weight, but not similar price. As far as I know, there are options from Lightweight/CarbonSports, but they cost considerably more money, and they weigh a tad more, too. And there were options from LEW Racing that were slightly lighter, but he appears to no longer be making wheels for the public, and they were also way more expensive.

I’ve been trying to think of a name for these wheels and it just came to me — “Morgul-Bismarck“. For those who don’t know, the Morgul-Bismarck was a classic Colorado road race with some very tough climbs, fast descents, and howling wind — the exact type of race for which these wheels were designed.

Do you have any suggestions on how to make a better all around set of racing wheels? We will be posting some photos, and weights, of a nice set of EDGE 1.68s in a few days, but we’d love to hear what you think of these…

Okay, so before I go any further, I promised Jason (aka “MadCow“) of Fairwheel Bikes, that I wouldn’t gloat over building a set of wheels lighter than his 718 gram wheels. We didn’t do anything differently than Jason, we just got lucky used a set of rims that were 3 grams lighter than the ones he used. The rims are the newly introduced EDGE 1.25 tubular rims, 20 hole for the front and 24 hole for the rear, and we laced them into an M5 flanged 33 gram front hub and an ExtraLite SX 133 gram rear hub. The spokes are Pillar 1422 titanium bladed spokes and the nipples are Pillar internal aluminum nipples.

The last set of uber-light wheels we built came out at 776 grams and were very similar except that the rims were the original EDGE 1.24 rims and the front hub was an ExtraLite SX rather than the M5 flanged. I can’t comment on how those wheels rode, as they were for a customer, and I can’t comment on how these new wheels ride because we just boxed them up and sent them to another customer, but I will say that these new rims look better to me, and they are definitely lighter. The first generation 1.24 rims were 212 grams each, and these rims were 186 and 195 grams. The ExtraLite front hub on the first set of wheels was 50 grams, and this M5 front hub is 33 grams. That said, I feel like this M5 front hub might be pushing things a bit too far — it feels pretty flimsy. But I suppose that if your goal is the absolute lightest, and you’re not a huge person, and you’re planning on using the wheels for only going up, and you don’t plan to put tens of thousands of miles on the hub, then maybe it’s fine.

It’s also worth noting that we have 8 of these rims in stock, and the average weight is 200 grams — some are a little over and some a little under. While I like the idea of having the lightest, I also like the idea of having a somewhat reliable wheel, so I’d personally gravitate toward the 200 gram rims for my personal wheels. But again, let’s wait a year or two and see how well these rims hold up.  They sure do look amazing!

It’s hard to describe what 715 grams feels like, but let’s just say that some “light” front wheels weigh that much alone.

And I should mention again, these wheels are not for sale — they’ve already been sold. But we do have more rims in stock, and plenty of ExtraLite, Tune and M5 hub options, and we’d be glad to make you a custom set. Just contact us and let us know what you’re looking for.

Here are some photos we took before boxing them up and shipping them off:

Here’s a little photo gallery of the new EDGE 45mm clinchers. We also have the 45mm clincher rims not laced into wheels, and a set of tubulars, also not laced into wheels, and I’ll try to get some photos of them on the site soon.

My initial reaction is that the shape looks to be much more aero, without the concave shape of the 38mm rim it replaces. I like the aesthetics quite a bit.

I’m a bit disappointed by the weight — I was thinking that they would be 30 or 40 grams lighter per rim. But I can’t think of any carbon clinchers I’d rather have.

Comments and questions are welcomed.

So “affordable” might be a bit of a stretch, but if memory serves me correctly the only lighter wheels I’ve seen were a set of Custom LEW Pro VT1 tubulars, and I think they cost upwards of $15k. These wheels, on the other hand, are more like the cost of some nice production Zipp wheels, so I’m taking the liberty of calling them “affordable”. But if I had told my mother that $2,500 for bicycle wheels was affordable, she would have slapped me.

Quick stats:

Front wheel

• Extralite SX UltraFront 20 hole hub
• Pilar 1422 bladed titanium spokes
• Pilar internal aluminum nipples
• EDGE Composites 1.24 all carbon tubular rim
• Weight: 338 grams

Rear wheel

• Extralite SX UltraRear 24 hole hub (Shimano compatible)
• Pilar 1422 bladed titanium spokes
• Pilar internal aluminum nipples
• EDGE Composites 1.24 all carbon tubular rim
• Weight: 438 grams

Here are some photos:

These wheels are no longer for sale — someone snapped them up already from our online store. EDGE 1.24 rims are in short supply right now but we’ve got some more on order and we will build another set of these when we get more rims in stock.