I personally purchased Elite's ultra-lightweight carbon bottle cage, the "Legero".
The claimed weight is 15g,
but since I have a bike that weighs 4980g without a bottle cage,
getting a bike under 5kg with a single bottle requires
a bottle cage under 20g, which is pretty important.
Because the construction is so flimsy, the distributor
issued this notice:
"This product is designed for weight reduction, and due to the material's characteristics,
we may not be able to address surface finish issues or damage/claims
that occur after installation and riding. Please understand this beforehand."
In other words, you're acknowledging upfront that you can't complain
even if it breaks right away.
Can't be helped, I suppose.
Topeak has a carbon cage called the Shuttle Cage CB,
and the current model has a claimed weight of 20g.
The earliest batches of this had noticeably thinner wings that hold the bottle,
and you could actually feel the thickness difference with your fingers
compared to later batches.
This difference also showed up in holding power—the thinner early models were a bit unreliable.
But since the actual weight was 16g, I'd say that's good enough on the lightweight front.
These kinds of exotic parts often get conservative pretty quick after release (or immediately),
with the manufacturer thinking "maybe we went too far with this" and
making the next batch noticeably heavier in ways you can't explain by normal variation.
For lightweight rims, stems, and bottle cages, it's important to grab the early batches.
There are plenty of examples of things getting heavier later, but I've never seen one get lighter.
The claimed weight is 15g plus or minus 10%,
but despite there being seemingly few variables affecting the weight,
a 20% swing between upper and lower limits seems pretty sloppy to me.
In extreme cases, you could have six hand-picked light ones and
five hand-picked heavy ones end up roughly the same weight.
So I busted out a scale that measures to 0.1g increments and measured the actual weight...
It was 14.2g. Hehehehe (lighter than 15g, so I'm pleased).
That's minus 5.4%.
Going by my own logic from earlier, the probability of this one weighing under 15g
next time I measure it is going to be pretty bleak.
The lower limit of minus 10%, which would be 13.5g, is supposedly possible,
but uh... that's hard to believe...
↑By the way, those parallelogram ribs here
do important work in holding the bottle securely.
You can't hollow out this area.
I just said something ominous, but never mind that.
↑Those vertical grooves on the Selle Mio or
↑the badges on Chiusi-type cages are also shapes designed for holding power.
Just now I had second thoughts and measured again, and it came out to 13.5g.
Strange, isn't it?
(Since the warranty won't)
cover it anyway
Durururu Gagaga
Hotototogisu
I have no idea what just happened.
Bad kids are welcome to copy me!
The claimed weight is 15g,
but since I have a bike that weighs 4980g without a bottle cage,
getting a bike under 5kg with a single bottle requires
a bottle cage under 20g, which is pretty important.
Because the construction is so flimsy, the distributor
issued this notice:
"This product is designed for weight reduction, and due to the material's characteristics,
we may not be able to address surface finish issues or damage/claims
that occur after installation and riding. Please understand this beforehand."
In other words, you're acknowledging upfront that you can't complain
even if it breaks right away.
Can't be helped, I suppose.
Topeak has a carbon cage called the Shuttle Cage CB,
and the current model has a claimed weight of 20g.
The earliest batches of this had noticeably thinner wings that hold the bottle,
and you could actually feel the thickness difference with your fingers
compared to later batches.
This difference also showed up in holding power—the thinner early models were a bit unreliable.
But since the actual weight was 16g, I'd say that's good enough on the lightweight front.
These kinds of exotic parts often get conservative pretty quick after release (or immediately),
with the manufacturer thinking "maybe we went too far with this" and
making the next batch noticeably heavier in ways you can't explain by normal variation.
For lightweight rims, stems, and bottle cages, it's important to grab the early batches.
There are plenty of examples of things getting heavier later, but I've never seen one get lighter.
The claimed weight is 15g plus or minus 10%,
but despite there being seemingly few variables affecting the weight,
a 20% swing between upper and lower limits seems pretty sloppy to me.
In extreme cases, you could have six hand-picked light ones and
five hand-picked heavy ones end up roughly the same weight.
So I busted out a scale that measures to 0.1g increments and measured the actual weight...
It was 14.2g. Hehehehe (lighter than 15g, so I'm pleased).
That's minus 5.4%.
Going by my own logic from earlier, the probability of this one weighing under 15g
next time I measure it is going to be pretty bleak.
The lower limit of minus 10%, which would be 13.5g, is supposedly possible,
but uh... that's hard to believe...
↑By the way, those parallelogram ribs here
do important work in holding the bottle securely.
You can't hollow out this area.
I just said something ominous, but never mind that.
↑Those vertical grooves on the Selle Mio or
↑the badges on Chiusi-type cages are also shapes designed for holding power.
Just now I had second thoughts and measured again, and it came out to 13.5g.
Strange, isn't it?
(Since the warranty won't)
cover it anyway
Durururu Gagaga
Hotototogisu
I have no idea what just happened.
Bad kids are welcome to copy me!