World's Lightest Road Bike

The biggest industry-only bicycle trade show in the country, Interbike, went down in Las Vegas last month, and there was one object of desire that many men with shaved legs and zero body fat couldn’t stop thinking about — a road bike that weighed less than seven pounds.

That’s right, a bike on display from Fairwheel Bikes of Tucson, Ariz., weighed a reported 6.55 pounds complete. To build the custom carbon rig, the shop started with a custom frame from the Germany’s Spin. The bike’s creators shaved gram after gram until it became what has to be one of the lightest performance bikes ever made.

The extreme gram-shaving effort included using a frame with headset bearing cups molded directly into the head tube and a smaller upper diameter cup to shave a few grams. The bottom bracket bearings are a slip-fit with cups molded in.

Fairwheel Bikes claims the stealthy rig is more than a stunt. According to the builder, the bike is totally rideable and about 20,000 miles have been logged on it. The price? About $45,000. More details here: http://fairwheelbikes.com/cycling-blog/prototypes

—Stephen Krcmar