When we last caught up with custom frame builder Andrea Sega of Werking bikes and Alpitude components this spring, he showed us his Ultra carbon bottle cages at 16g a piece. Well, apparently those weren’t minimalist enough. So Alpitude refined and continued to develop an even lighter handmade carbon cage – the Superleggero. We got a couple in, tossed them onto the scale, and bolted them up to a bike. Now time to ride…
Alpitude Superleggero lightweight carbon bottle cages
Alpitude’s latest Superleggero carbon cages are about as minimal as you could imagine. With just a continuous single loop of carbon, hand-laid in their workshop in the Italian Dolomites, plus a separate carbon lower stop tab. Sega says that his simple loop style cages offer more stiffness than many lesser designs and hold a standard sized bottle securely even over rough road surfaces.
In fact he told us earlier, “if a cage relies on [a] hook for bottle retention, the second the bottle slips past it, you lose the bottle.” Instead he focused on a light, stiff, and easy to use design, made from premium carbon fibers.
These 79€ Superleggero carbon cages are for sure designed for road bikes, but they apparently can bleed over a bit into cross or gravel riding. (Trust me, I’ll test that one out.) But no mountain biking, here. For more off-road riding the Ultra does get approval for XC, though.
Alpitude claims a weight of 9.5g for the Superleggero cage without bolts. Ours came in just a tad under that (not rounding up to the next gram). Add in the included grade 5, black titanium cage bolts, and it was still just 12g.
First Impressions
The cage is crazy light. I first tossed one on my steel road+ gravel bike that doubles as an urban commuter, and so far it has held strong over Prague’s sometimes rough cobblestone city streets. But I haven’t taken them at high speed yet, and that’s were bottles really tend to eject from light cages. It is reassuringly stiff to put the bottle in and take it out, but I’m still leery of using a larger (thus heavier) bottle. I’ll keep ratcheting up the road surface difficulty to see how they hold, and will report back on how the Superleggero fares.
