Most cyclists probably don't give much thought to what sort of water bottle cage they use. If you're one of those people who just has to have the best of everything, though, you might want to check out Alptitude's 3D-printed titanium Superleggero TI.
Italian manufacturer Alptitude Bike Components has created a number of high-end bicycle parts in recent years. The company even previously released a carbon fiber version of the Superleggero cage.
This latest TI version, however, is 3D-printed out of titanium … complete with weight-saving cut-out sections. It's printed via a technique known as selective laser melting, in which a laser builds an item up one layer at a time by melting metal powder in a specific pattern. The cage is sand-blasted as a final step, to give it a matte silver finish.
According to Alptitude, each Superleggero TI cage weighs just 14.7 grams – it's reportedly the world's lightest 3D-printed titanium bottle cage (not that there's much competition in that category). For comparison, most carbon or polymer cages weigh anywhere from around 20 to 50 grams.
The company is only offering the Superleggero TI in groups of two, and will manufacture just 99 of those pairs. Each set comes in a wooden box, along with a carbon fiber number card. And yeah, they're expensive – you'll have to pay €380 (about US$416) for a pair of your own.
If the cage does turn your crank (pun intended), you might also be interested in the 3D-printed titanium TX-1 handlebar made by British company Mythos.
Source: Alptitude Bike Components via BikeRumor
