Manufacturer, Retailer, Survey and Consumer Feedback - Review for Flit Letica Wheelset

The FLIT Letica wheelset is built from the ground up to provide a high performance lightweight pair of wheels. Great for everyday riding but engineered for fast-pace group rides/races, this wheelset outperforms wheels in its class. With its outstanding light weight at 1315g, the FLIT Letica climbs like a rocket and nimbly accelerates to win the field sprint. Not only is weight a focus for these wheels, durability is also a priority. This is addressed by a plethora of spokes, specifically 20 in the front and 28 laced 2x/2x in the rear. Spoke tension is also evened by using thicker spokes on the drive side. Like all FLIT wheels, this wheelset is proudly hand built in the U.S.A.

Rim: Flit Aluminum Clincher
Rim Depth: 22mm
Spoke Count: 20Front/28Rear
Hubs: Flit SL hubs
Hub Spacing: 100mm Front/130mm Rear
Spokes:
Front: Wheelsmith XL14
Rear: Wheelsmith XL14(non-drive side) Wheelsmith DB14(drive side)
Sapim CX-Ray Option available
Lacing: Radial Front and 2x/2x Rear
Nipples: Flit External Alloy Nipples
Weight: 1315 grams

My review are for the Flit Leticas with the Sapim CX-Ray spoke upgrade.
Shimano, SRAM or Campagnolo Compatibility
MSRP - $538 (as of 5/30/2009)

FLit is a company owned by Brent Delrosario. Brent is a Michigan native, and also a racer with the Wolverine Sports Club (http://wolverinesportsclub.com/). His business, according to an interview with Tim Finkelstein (http://timfinkel.blogspot.com) was started in order to provide light, and quality track wheels to friends, young racers and (employee) track starlet whom is only named Maia at a lower price than what is out on the market. Brent declares that Flit Wheels is not intended as a main project, nor for him to become the next Donald Trump... Some of us have noticed this with the inability to contact the company, but what can you say when this operation is not the primary means of income in a person's life, no?

Initial Observations

The Flit Leticas feel LIGHT. Decals are subtle, and not tacky/lame. (like many claim about another budget wheel company :rolleyes::p ) They came out of the box very true, and the only intial dissapointment is the look of the rear hub. These wheels with their low spoke count and 22mm rim depth seem to be a nice pair of trainer or race wheels for that windy day, or times you will not cry if something happens to them.

Stats, Observations, and Impression

The letica rims are light. They are at decent depth of 22mm Not Aero, but then again not Roubaix box rims either. They appear to be pin-joined together, and welded along with machined braking surfaces. The spoke holes are drilled, and very smooth and appear to be painted over also. Not that this matters to Velox users :rolleyes:.

The hubs just might be the visually weakest link of the wheels. They look generic. If you are expecting CNC machined rims with every gram shaved off, or aerodynamics considered on every surface, you'll be missing out. Pictures below will explain. The rear hub has several rubber seals to cover the modular axle and freewheel... something I have not seen before. The dish on the hub is also very svelte, and includes a thick axle spacer on the non-cassette side. I don't know if this is a normal thing, but I honestly prefer a wider dished rim and hub combo.

Sapim CX-Ray Spokes. Everyone seems to love them, and they were listed as lighter and stronger than the original spokes that were provided with the wheels. I couldn't resist. The nipples are four-sided, and honestly, I couldn't make out the appearance of them inside the rim. I'll get back on this.

How do they spin up? Well... My bike is currenty being repaired over in China, so I am unable to take them out for a ride. I did stick both the front and rear wheel in my stationary trainer and see how long they spun. I tried to keep it as empirical as possible to compare them to the only other wheelset I own and will say that my neuvation wheels (while having 1000/300 miles on them) spun longer with as close of a spin as I did with the Flits. This could have all kinds of confounds, or it could just be that the bearings/grease are still stiff with the Flits

Front Neuvation M28 Aero 3: 4:35
Rear Neuvation M28 Aero 3: 3:51

Front Flit Letica: 2:40
Rear Flit Letica: 1:22

And we all know that we are concerned about weight. I don't have a scale truly accurate enough for these wheels at home, but my chemistry-class style triple beam balance states that these wheels weigh in at 1280g. I'll check this out tonight in the labs.

More info later, now for the pictures! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lalahsghost/archives/date-posted/2009/05/30/)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3615/3579389264_912d6592ca.jpg?v=0 http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2457/3579388646_2a56f677ef.jpg?v=0 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3642/3578581935_a674a2fa52.jpg?v=0 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3324/3579389540_1fddd9f43a.jpg?v=1243711190 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3378/3578578349_2900a46b74.jpg?v=0 http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3320/3579384296_5a971f2534.jpg?v=0 http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2434/3579387084_ab071a5e4e.jpg?v=0

Hope this helps anyone out. Expect more soon.

For more pictures, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lalahsghost/archives/date-posted/2009/05/30/

***EDIT***

I just went to my university and used their most accurate scale (.0001g +/-) and just for the sake of laziness, I rounded to the closest gram. 1280g for the wheelset. Really now? How can this be true? Flitwheels.com states 1310g without the Sapim CX-Ray upgrade. With the spoke upgrade only knocking off a reported ten grams, this makes the wheelset 20g underweight. that's 0.7oz. Wow. (now I trust my triple beam balance a little more too!)

This, with the 47g KCNC Skewers makes a 536g loss of weight from my wheelset.

thanks for the photos, but I wouldn't really call this a review, without having, uhm, used them. :innocent:

i'm no wheelbuilder, but looking at the photos of the rear DS, it looks like the heads-in spokes are juuuust barely NOT touching the hub flange. is that true, or is it a trick of the light or something? i forget if it was sheldon's article, or brandt's book, but i remember reading this was a no-no.

so as not to sound like a total sourpuss, i almost bought in on the group buy myself, and i'm sure they'll turn out to be a sweet ride.

ok, last thing - are those spin-down times unweighted? presumably they are (how else would you do the front??). if so, i don't think they mean much..

Yah, as stated my CF frame had the FD braze on clamp fracture, so it is being repaired/replaced... and the only other bike I own is a seven-speed rain bike. A ride-review will be posted in about two weeks, I hope. This was just a first impression.

The hubs seem to have a funny slot in them for bladed spokes to be slid through. I'm still a pretty big newbie when it comes to cycling components compared to many forum goers, but the inside section where the spoke rests is very enclosed (imagine a pie with one piece cut out), and does not look loose at all.

Once again the vernacular for the spin-down times being unweighted? Could you elaborate or explain it a little simpler for me? :) Sorry for soundling like a dunce but if I don't ask, I doubt I would understand.

What I did for the spin times was take both sets of wheels (neuvation and flit), stick my cyclometer magnet on them, and attempt to get the wheel up to a standardized speed (10mph) I then timed the wheel until it stopped rotating in a full circle. I would then do the next wheel (same kind of skewer, same bicycle trainer to mount it in, and started the time once I got the wheel to 10mph. And so on, and so forth.

Once again the vernacular for the spin-down times being unweighted? Could you elaborate or explain it a little simpler for me? :) Sorry for soundling like a dunce but if I don't ask, I doubt I would understand.

What I did for the spin times was take both sets of wheels (neuvation and flit), stick my cyclometer magnet on them, and attempt to get the wheel up to a standardized speed (10mph) I then timed the wheel until it stopped rotating in a full circle. I would then do the next wheel (same kind of skewer, same bicycle trainer to mount it in, and started the time once I got the wheel to 10mph. And so on, and so forth.

sorry for being unclear. what i was getting at was (and again, i'm no expert on this or anything else :D), people have theorized here in the past that the performance of a hub when "unweighted", meaning basically that you're not actually sitting on the bike, may not relate to its performance when you're actually riding it on the road, due to the different physical forces being applied to it.

i'm not sure which side of it, sitting on the bike on a trainer falls on, since most (none?) of the weight of the bike or yourself is actually supported by the wheel..

but, i don't really know what i'm talking about... :o