I am looking at buying a new Litespeed road bike and see that it is heavily spec’d with Real Design components (ie, fork, wheelset, post, etc). I realize this is part of ABG and they did hire Steve Hed to help develop some of their carbon wheels but don’t really know much beyond that.
Are these components any good, reliable, well built? Does anyone even know where they are manufactured? The website doesn’t provide much in the way of detail.
TriMike,
I bought a Blade recently and have all of the Real Design stuff. No real complaints on my part. I prefer Zipp wheels so I put those on the bike - but the Real Design ones did not appear to be terrible or poorly done in the least. They appear to be a lot like HED wheels but I will let the board experts debate that.
I also changed the Fork to Reynolds but the reality is that did nothing to my performance. Just a historical preference.
I think ABG’s Real Design products are a nice way to package the bike - giving it lots of Carbon flash - without having to increase the bike price a whole lot. Makes a lot of sense.
Here is my general take: If you are choosing between Real Design or Zipp/Reynolds wheels. Then Zipp/Reynolds is the choice. BUT if you are going to the stock wheels that are on Cervelo, Kestrel, etc - the Real Design wheels provide a value added.
TriMike,
The RD stuff is nice especially the forks. The wheels are nice. The aero wheels rattle a bit like the Mavic Cosmic Carbones. The Ultrafly or ultraspheres now, are sweet, lightweight wheels. The ultraspheres flex a bit if you really rail a corner (but so do the Zipp 202s) but not to the point of instability. I use the Ultraspheres are my Merlin Extralight (sub-16lbs) and have a set of Ultrasonic 60s for my TiPhoon but use Zipps on race day 
The RD wheels are hand-built which is nice but come out the box completely out of true (so I don’t know whose hands are building them, maybe monkeys). Herbert, are you listening? The wheels take some time to get right and plenty of spokeprep but are a great value on the OEM bikes.
My $0.02
I’m by far no expert on the subject - my blade is only the second time trial bike I’ve owned (the first was a '98? Fuji Aloha) - but I have Real Design components on it - I upgraded to the 60mm set of wheels and they seem to work fine. I left the fork and seat post stock Real Design and have no complaints. I am planning on getting some Zipp wheels eventually for racing - once my bank account recovers from the bike purchase - maybe sometime next year. The 606 set and the 999 set look good, and if I win the lottery, I will buy both the Z6 and Z99 sets - don’t hold your breath…