Lightweight Meilenstein 24E Rim Brake Clincher Wheelset

Lightweight Meilenstein 24E Rim Brake Clincher Wheelset comes from a German manufacturer that built its reputation on carbon wheels that don't look or ride like anything else on the market. Lightweight hand-builds every wheel in Friedrichshafen, Germany, a legacy that traces back to 1994, when the company's founders built the first full carbon wheel and cured it in a Leberkäse oven. This Meilenstein wheelset carries that construction philosophy into a rim brake clincher build, priced at $6,450.

What sets a Lightweight wheel apart structurally is spoke count and construction. This wheelset runs just 16 spokes up front and 20 in the rear — far fewer than a conventional carbon wheel — because Lightweight builds its rims and spokes as a single bonded carbon structure rather than lacing separate J-bend spokes into a rim. Fewer spokes means less material creating drag through the air, and the direct carbon-to-carbon bond is part of why Lightweight wheels have a reputation for an unusually direct, stiff feel underfoot despite their light weight.

The rim itself runs a 48mm depth with a 17mm internal width and 24mm external width — a shape built for an all-round road wheel rather than a pure climbing or pure aero design, deep enough to pick up real aerodynamic benefit on flatter roads while staying light and narrow enough to feel lively on a climb. That balance is the reason Meilenstein has stayed Lightweight's benchmark model since the brand reorganized its lineup around the name in 2012.

Lightweight's race history runs through the WorldTour peloton for decades — Jan Ullrich won the Tour de France on Lightweight wheels in 1997, the year the brand adopted its name, and Richard Carapaz won Olympic road race gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games riding Lightweight's Meilenstein Obermayer wheels. That pedigree sits behind a wheel built the same way today: full in-house production, tight quality control, and a stiffness-to-weight ratio the brand treats as its core engineering priority rather than a marketing line.

This is a rim brake wheelset, which matters in a market that's shifted almost entirely to disc — it's built for a rider who owns a rim brake race bike and wants a wheel upgrade that matches the bike's era without compromising on materials or construction quality. Clincher compatibility keeps tire setup simple, without the extra steps tubular or tubeless-specific wheels require. It's a wheelset for a rider who already knows what Lightweight is and specifically needs a rim brake option to fit a bike that predates the disc brake transition.