Lightweight – there is hardly any roadie that doesn´t get shiny eyes upon hearing that word. No wonder - the name Lightweight is a synonym for THE perfect wheel. Light, stiff, aerodynamic, durable, fast – and simple outstanding beautiful.
Exhibitor Profile: Lightweight
The history of Lightweight is deeply connected to the best and most successful road bike pros in the World. These guys were the first riders who raced the revolutionary Lightweight wheels at World Championships and all the biggest races on the planet, and spread the word on the international road racing scene.
Lightweight is a piece of German craftsmanship and a story of success with real homeland roots. It all started in the mid-nineties with the invention of Lightweight wheels by the founding fathers Rudolf Dierl and Heinz Obermayer. Working very hard in their small garage near Munich, they persevered on finding the right procedures and inventing the perfect tools until they were happy with what they got: building the best wheels in the world!
Lightweight wheels have existed since 1995 (and have been constantly developing and improving since then). By 1996 the world championship was won on Lightweight wheels. A well known Danish road bike pro, always keen to experiment, decided after many trial rides to use what were then exotic Lightweight wheels on the climbing stages of the Tour de France.
Lightweight wheels are proudly handcrafted in germany, with facilities in Friedrichshafen at Lake Constance, and Hailfingen (south of Stuttgart). CarbonSports took over the Lightweight brand some years ago and are, to this day, the exclusive owners of Lightweight.
Starting from small beginnings, today in Germany more than 40 families in Hailfingen and Friedrichshafen live by working for the Lightweight brand – in production, sales and marketing. And there are many more people all over the world that at least gain a part of their income by being a member of the international Lightweight family, working in the supply chain for these exclusive wheels to some of the best cyclists in the world.
16 hours to get the perfect wheel: the birth of every Lightweight wheel starts in one of most advanced fiber-reinforced composite facilities in the world in Friedrichshafen near Lake Constance. Here all the raw materials - special Carbon fiber, epoxy resins, special foam bodies, hub parts and lots of other parts are delivered, to build our exceptional Lightweight wheels. Much of the work can only be done by human hand.
All the small parts are put together within one to two hours into a special wheel building body-form that was designed exclusively for Lightweight. Following this procedure the filled form moves into a special autoclave oven where a detailed and precisely defined baking process takes some more hours. The result is a raw wheel that is ready to pass into the complex finishing process by our skilled specialists.
Visit this exhibitor's website: http://www.carbonsports.de/index.php?id=2&L=1
Contact
T: +49 1801 688 488
F: +49 7541 388 910
CarbonSports GmbH
Otto-Lilienthal-Str. 15
88046Friedrichshafen
GERMANY
Germany
The editor says
The pro peleton are a deeply conservative bunch when it comes to their components. They stick with what they know like a baby clutches its security blanket. But one manufacturer changed that forever. Lightweight wheels achieved near mythological status virtually overnight and had the top riders in the world queuing around the block.
