My current man crush for wheels is the Ardennes Black. Those have the mega width, and they are almost as light as the very light wheels. The nut is that it is rare to find wide rims lighter than 1,600g. Ardennes Black is close to 1,400g.

Yep. I wrote above that I wanted the Belgium+ but I knew that was wrong. These are my dream wheels. Just way too pricey for the weight savings.

Ditto, and I think the Belgium rims are what they use on the Ardennes wheels. The value of the FLO 30 cannot be beat.

If you are building a TRUE climbing bike (and I mean climbing only!) you should check out Phil Gaimon"s stuff on YouTube. He cut the drops off, only one brake, etc.

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"I keep hoping for you to use your superior intellect to be less insufferable. Sadly, you continue to disappoint." - gofigure

I have a tcr sl with integrated post. It weighs 13.25 lbs built w/pedals and bottle cages. Rides awesome, is my RR bike haven’t done any hillclimbs yet. Some parts I’d recommend:

Williams handlebars. Cheapish, comfy and light.

Lizard 1.8 tape.

Giant contact slr stem (old style). Basically is a block of carbon. Super stiff, fairly light...looks diesel. Keep in mind TCR has OD2 steerer which won’t take all stems.

Sram Red cranks. Love the look and surprise are stiff and light. I have an etap group (got frame cheap splurged on group) so that’s prob not what your looking for. The sram red cassette is a work of art and super light. GXP bb has been solid so far.

Fulcrum racing zero carbon wheels. Found a good deal, 1340 g and wide. Latex tubes. The Racing Zero Nite wheels are Alloy and light.

Carbon rail seat will def save weight. I have Antares it’s comfy to boot.

Hope your TCR build comes out great!!! My fave bike.

You can source some older parts that are pretty light if you want to go 26.0 for the bars and stems and you can do it cheap. If you want to go 31.8 bars, do the Uno stems with ti bolts and a light bars.

If you are building a climbing bike just to climb with then I would not even go with drop bars but if you want to ride the bike for other then just climbing, I would look at older Sram Red 10 speed and gut the front shifter and run it 1 X 10. You could do a very light build.

Also aero does not have to be heavy.