ITALY’S WILIER-TRIESTINA has more than a century of distinguished bike-making history in its sum of recognized accomplishments but has garnered all sorts of unexpected publicity in recent months. Wilier bikes featured in a cycling-themed episode of ITV’s quirky Midsomer Murders, and a Wilier was also chosen by a young Belgian rider for her unauthorized experiment in motorized cyclocross. Perhaps more pertinently, Wilier makes some cutting-edge pro-level road bikes such as this Zero.7, with its sub-800g frame.
In creating the Zero.7, Wilier’s designers took the integrated cabling, integrated fork and improved aerodynamics they had developed for the company’s Cento bikes, this time using smaller diameter – and thus lighter – carbon fiber tubing, which is allowed by the use of a ‘special thermoplastic material’ during the manufacturing stage. This ‘helps to create a uniform pressure along the inner carbon walls of the frame’, which Wilier says combines sufficient stiffness in crucial areas with that low frame weight. This stiffness is reinforced by the oversized BB386Evo bottom bracket, a standard that Wilier developed along with FSA, while another less obvious design feature is the lowered downtube. This segues into a lengthened head tube (a claimed 14 percent torsionally stiffer, of course) and blends into the fork in a manner that reduces aerodynamic drag.
Stiffness can translate to an uncomfortable ride, and where Italian competitor Bianchi has its ‘Countervail’ technology, Wilier uses its own comfort-increasing SEI – ‘Special Elastic Infiltrated’ – film, a viscoelastic film that sits between the layers of carbon and is claimed to increase the material’s shock resistance and its ability to bend without breaking, while reducing the risk of delamination.
Our Zero.7 is built up with Shimano Ultegra 6800 and Shimano RS10 Wheelset. If you fancy yourself a bit of an artist – and can bear the three-month lead time – you could go for Wilier’s nifty custom configurator, which allows you to color just about every part of the frameset independently.
For more details on the 2016 Wilier Triestina Zero.7 Shimano Ultegra 6800 Complete Bike Complete Bike.
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