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EB13: Prototype Full Carbon Disc Brake Road Wheels from Lightweight

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prototype Lightweight full carbon disc brake road bike wheels

Lightweight is developing a full carbon disc brake wheelset, which should give them one of the lightest options on the market.

One of the challenges that’s somewhat unique to them is heat management. With most hubs, you have an alloy body to absorb any excess heat from the rotor without safety issues. With a full carbon hub bonded directly to carbon spokes, they need to be sure the heat won’t mess with the resin and cause strength degradation. They also need to make sure the spokes are up to the additional torque forces, or design new ones.

This prototype shows a rim from their Meilenstein and is heavily based on that model. That means it has a brake track, but they’re considering a dedicated disc-only rim. The hub is a bit oversized, something that might change, too…

prototype Lightweight full carbon disc brake road bike wheels

As is, it’s about 100g heavier than their Mielenstein wheelset, but they’re still looking at ways to make it more competitive. That’s for the tubular, and a clincher will come, too. Besides heat management, another challenge comes from knowing the intended use of early disc brake road bikes. Many will find their way onto gravel roads and cyclocross courses, so they have to make it durable enough to handle those things.

They’re working hard on it with the goal of getting it into production and available for sale next year, preferably earlier than later.

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JMS
JMS
10 years ago

Enve dropped 60gr per wheel when they went disc specific. Hopefully Lightweight will do a similar job or even better since their premium is way higher so it’s expected to have even better performance.

My next road bike will only be a 100% tubeless AND disc only wheels. Untill then I’ll wait and see what will come up.

Dave
Dave
10 years ago

Except that the ENVE wheels are priced closer to $3000.00 a set if not more. The new Reynolds ASSAULT SLG DISC wheels are $1850.00 a set and will be great for my cross and road riding.

And if I happen to crash during a ride or a race Reynolds will give me new wheels as I signed on to their RAP program.

Pancakes
Pancakes
10 years ago

Dave,

The Reynolds aren’t really disc specific. I could take the comparison one step further and say a pair of Ebay disc carbon wheels are $400 a set and do the same basic thing as the Reynolds.

The Enves aren’t price point wheels, they’re what you splurge on if you want the best.

Rob
Rob
10 years ago

There are 100% Carbon rotors available and matching those with these wheels would be really cool.

CXisfun
CXisfun
10 years ago

@JMS: I think they dropped 60g per RIM with wheel weights coming in about the same.

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