Dice has an all-new light-weight prototype Litening TE aero highway bike in works, being race-tested now by the Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert professional group. Mixing aerodynamic influences from their present aero highway Litening, this new prototype bike will get a lot thinner from entrance to again in a lighter shift we anticipate to fully reshape Dice’s signature highway race bike later this summer time…
CUBE Litening TE prototype light-weight aero highway bike
Already raced via the steeper levels of the Giro d’Italia final month, I caught one other glimpse of the prototype bike this week on the Tour de Suisse. So I received a little bit of a better take a look at the brand new bike… tucked in hidden behind the present Litening, which I rode when it debuted again in 2019…
Prototype Growth & Testing
c. Dice, Giro 2022 photograph by Biking Media Company
The very first thing we might surmise is that Dice is protecting the Litening title for this dramatically redesigned highway race bike, because of the Litening TE labels painted on the prototypes’ toptubes. However past the title, various this prototype has been reshaped.
The bike nonetheless seems to be clearly optimized for aerodynamics, however its total profile is way thinner and lighter than the present Litening.
Whereas it retains aero integration, it does nonetheless shift again to a extra typical, wider-looking headtube with solely delicate hourglass shaping via its mid-section.
c. Dice, Giro 2022 photograph by Biking Media Company
The Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Staff appears to have had at the least a few of these prototypes even since late final season, and because the begin of 2022 has began racing them frequently. On the sprint-heavy begin of this yr’s Giro d’Italia nearly all the group was nonetheless on the deep aero-shaped present Litening, suggesting the older bike should still be stiffer or extra aerodynamic.
However by the Giro’s second week when racing received into the large mountains, nearly each bike on the group automobile was the seemingly lighter Litening TE prototype.
What’s new?
There are two most blatant adjustments within the new prototype Litening TE…
c. Dice, Giro 2022 photograph by Biking Media Company
First, the elimination of the small webbed transition on the seat cluster suggests there could also be extra aero gainz via a flatter toptube and easily replying on the Kamm tail aero form of the seattube. The seatpost seems to share the identical deeper aero profile of the present bike, a small rear wheel cutout, and nonetheless a 3-bolt setscrew clamp from the rear of the seattube.
However the seattube itself seemingly will get a steeper angle as all the prototype Dice Litening TE group bikes have been fitted with setback seatposts, whereas lots of the present mannequin bikes use zero offset posts.
The opposite main distinction is a considerably thinner fork. From its legs to its crown, the Litening TE fork seems to be lighter. The brand new fork doesn’t actually transition its form right into a wider downtube, as a substitute the brand new fork legs keep wide-set till a extra rounded crown and the downtube pulled up greater away from airflow coming off the entrance tire.
The brand new Dice Litening TE prototype additionally nonetheless will get absolutely inside cable routing on the headset. However now it includes a extra conventional-looking straight 1.5″ headset that sits above the toptube (as a substitute of being inset), persevering with with wider, extra spherical steerer tube spacers. That implies a change within the precise routing into the body – the place it earlier than entered behind a 1 1/8″ headset bearing, now it seems to be to undergo the 1 1/2″ higher bearing.
Dice Litening TE – When is it coming?
Total, this prototype Dice Litening TE highway bike seems to be much less like a devoted aero highway bike – in comparison with the Litening launched in 2019 – and extra like a contemporary all-rounder race bike, higher balancing aerodynamics AND mild weight. Out solely actual query that continues to be is will it fully exchange the present Litening C:68X SLT that Biniam Girmay rode to some spectacular outcomes on the Giro d’Italia this yr? Or whether or not the 2 bikes will be capable to co-exist – one as a flat stage aero sprinter’s bike and the opposite as a light-weight climber’s bike or perhaps a versatile all-rounder?
Ridden already from the northern Spring Classics to the summer time Grand Excursions, the brand new prototype Litening TE seems to be like a extra versatile highway race bike than the present aero highway era.
The actual query now comes right down to after we anticipate a correct launch of the brand new bike?
The Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert group made some big milestones already this season, with Classics and Grand Tour stage wins for his or her Eritrean entrance man Biniam Girmay Hailu, amongst many others as they’ve stepped as much as the top-tier UCI WorldTeam degree beginning final yr. As soon as once more, the Tour de France is the large present, and we wouldn’t be shocked to see German bike sponsor CUBE use this as an enormous platform to advertise their newest top-tier highway racing bike.
In spite of everything, it’s been nearly a yr of racing below the sq. UCI Prototype label, and that’s so long as the bike maker formally will get earlier than they’ve to supply the brand new bike on the market to customers below the UCI’s technical gear guidelines. So, we’ll maintain out ears open within the first week of July…
