LITESPEED C3

Every cyclist wants to be fast. And forced to choose between a fast-looking bike and one that looked a bit duddy, we'd always go for fast. It's all in our subconscious -- we know the suffering of cycling, and even the placebo of a swift looking steed helps to lessen the pain. The Litespeed C3 looks just about as fast, as racy, as premium as their C1, and like the rest of the C series it has wind tunnel proven aerodynamic qualities. So not only does it looks fast, it goes fast, and it does so on a budget.

This is one of the great things about molded carbon-fiber frames. Lots of engineering, time, research, and money go towards the mold, the holy altar. Once in hand and with the manufacturing process dialed, they maximize use by molding different arrangements and quantities of different carbon-fiber plies via the same exact process, in this case Reactive Pressure Molding. Thanks to the identical shape and identical process, Litespeed can have more than one bike model to suit different price points. While the raw materials, layup schedule, and frame weight may change, the geometry, aerodynamics, and even basic ride qualities stay the same.

The scaled image you see hides the gloriously varied shapes of the frameset. Just take a look at the down tube. It looks huge. In person, you can see how the tube is subtly changing shape throughout its length. There is no extreme flare where the down tube meets the bottom bracket, but a gradual widening of the tube as it travels from the head tube. Likewise the profile at the top of the down tube gives room for your water bottle cage to nestle somewhat hidden from the wind. Likewise, the seat stays are wide and flat for shock absorption where they join the seat tube and they morph on their journey to the rear dropouts, becoming narrow and long because more wind passes over them by the dropouts. Same goes for the top tube, which starts out massive for front end stiffness and gets smaller for compliance by the seat tube. And when you look at a Small frame next to a Medium, next to a Large, you'll see subtle differences in the shaping as well; Litespeed takes each frame as its own design rather than just doing just one tubing design for the entire size run. Litespeed calls the shaping Aerologic.

Aerologic works the same throughout the C-series frames. The reduction in drag goes from a minimum of 100g of drag when the bike is facing directly into the wind to a maximum of almost 200g in certain side wind conditions. The difference is about the equivalent of adding a set of aero wheels to a regular road bike; only you're getting that benefit with training wheels. It's that much faster when you put on your aero race wheels.

At first glance, the C3 looks exactly like the C1. They share a shape, a paint scheme, a seat post, a fork, and have some minor differences in decals. External cable routing is the obvious difference. You probably also noticed there's a price difference as well. External routing is indeed less expensive, and much easier to deal with, but that only accounts for some of the difference. Litespeed uses a majority of less-expensive 30T carbon-fiber to fabricate this frame. About 90% of the frame makeup comes from 30T cloth. In order to get the desired stiffness, more plies are used. More plies create greater tube thicknesses in some areas. This is fairly simple math: the C1R uses lots of 60T carbon fiber, 30T is half the strength, so in order to match the strength you need to double the quantity of plies. The extra plies add weight and that accounts for the weight difference. And the extra thickness results in a slightly less snappy ride feeling.

As with all C series frames, Litespeed went all-out to re-imagine the carbon-fiber frameset, and the details help prove this point. The steerer tube is tapered, turning 1-1/8" and 1.5" integrated bearings from FSA. The rake is 43mm, and the fork tips are carbon-wrapped Inox stainless steel. The rear dropouts are similarly designed and have a replaceable stainless steel derailleur hanger. The bottom bracket is a BB30 design to optimize light weight and stiffness. If you're not a fan of BB30, or would prefer to use your favorite crank and bottom bracket combo, adapters are available for quick and easy conversions. Because of the massive down tube, a traditional front derailleur clamp can't fit, so it has a "braze-on" hanger. The seat post (218g) and seat post clamp come with the frame.

The Litespeed C3 comes in White/black. Sizes are Small, Medium, Medium Large, Large, and Extra Large.

Litespeed offers a limited lifetime warranty on their frames that will cover manufacturing defects. They also have a crash replacement policy.

2011 Litespeed C3 Pricing