Alpitude has a new limited edition of ultralight Superleggero Ti Black 3D-printed titanium water bottle cages to either spice up your own fancy road bike or stuff somebody special’s stocking. Weighing just 14.5g a piece and only being sold in pairs – together with a handmade wooden box – the Alpitude Superleggero Ti Black cages now feature a new stealthy black Cerakote finish and are incrementally lighter thanks to more precise printing that leaves a smoother surface texture.
They are undeniably expensive at a bit more than 13€ per gram – about the same Walter White might charge you – but a pair of Superleggero Ti Black cages will bling out your ride and won’t run you afoul of the law, unless maybe you are already flirting with the UCI’s 6.8kg limit…
Alpitude Superleggero Ti Black ultralight ltd 3D-printed titanium cages
Last fall, the Italian lightweight component makers at Alpitude launched their ultralight & ultra-expensive 3D-printed titanium water bottle cages. Now a year later, they are back in another limited edition with a few small key updates.
The most obvious update is their new smoother black finish. Alpitude does love the look of raw titanium. But in a world of carbon bikes, it’s also hard to argue with matte black. So Alpitude partnered with Cerakote to bring their durable, lightweight & ultra-thin ceramic coating in-house to finish off these new cages (and likely more lightweight components in the future). I didn’t realize, but the thin ceramic coating is sprayed on similarly to conventional paint, and then requires a special oven to cure it. Alpitude does all this in-house, then laser-etches on their logo subtly revealing the titanium beneath.
Less obvious, but more important really, is what happens beneath that Cerakote black outer ceramic layer. The biggest change Alpitude made to their Superleggero Ti cages in the past year was collaborating with a new 4-laser DMSL titanium 3D-printing partner, less focused on volume & turnover and more on quality. The result is a much smoother finish of the cages straight out of the printer, which likely shaves almost a gram off each cage in the end. That smother surface is also better suited to the application of Cerakote, and the reduced weight more than offsets that added by the ceramic coating itself.
The end result, Alpitude told us the cages now weigh 14.5g each with the same design. That’s down 0.2g or 1% from last year. But Alpitude say that’s still within the +/- weight tolerances anyway, so they’re not calling it out as any real change.
Tech details
- 1-piece hollowed-out 3D-printed titanium water bottle cage
- sandblasted, baked-on black Cerakote finish & laser-etched graphics – all in-house
- 14.5g per cage (claimed)
- 199 individually numbered, limited edition box sets
- only available in pairs: includes 2 cages in a handmade wooden box with low-profile black titanium screws & a carbon number card
- limited numbered edition
2024 Alpitude Superleggero Ti Black – Pricing & availability
Although launching with only a couple weeks left in the year, these 3D-printed titanium cages Alpitude names this limited run of Superleggero Ti Black cages the 2024 Bundle Edition. Each boxed bundle sells for 390€, and just 199 sets are being produced. The majority of cage box sets will be offered through Alpitude’s partner retailer shops. The few sets offered up directly from Alpitude seem to have already sold out.
