Louis Meintjes has already had an impressive ride in the 2022 Tour de France, and his secret weapon is his new, as yet unreleased, Cube Litening C:68 TE. This bike has been spotted at races before the Tour, but information is still restricted to what we can see, so here are our thoughts.
The boundaries between endurance, aero and climb-friendly road bikes are constantly blurring, and the new Litening TE C:68 appears to be following the trend. Its profile view is considerably slimmer than the obviously aero C:68X, as ridden to several notable victories this season by the team’s talented fast man, Biniam Girmay. The success of the new bike under Louis Meintjes so far in this year’s Tour – at the time of writing, he’s 7th on GC, at 4:24 – suggests that it climbs like few aero bikes can, and is more of an all-rounder, in the style of Specialized’s Tarmac.
The head tube area, seat tube, down tube, top tube, seatpost and fork all display less depth when viewed in profile, and the lines look simpler. Meintjes rides a 50cm frame, so it’s difficult to get an exact picture of how larger sizes will look from this bike alone.
The current C:68X accepts a maximum tyre width of 28mm, but Meintjes’ bike has 28mm tyres fitted and still boasts plenty of clearance at the gently curved fork. Depending on the clearance at the seat and chain stays, the new Litening C:68 TE could fit tyres as wide as 30mm or 32mm, which would cover most professional races.
The seatpost looks to have a slimmed down, kamm tail profile, and is held in place by a pair of recessed bolts. The number 1 between the stays denotes that this is Louis Meintjes’ number one machine – the bike he will start each stage aboard – because most riders will have at least two.
The seat tube looks less bulky, but still follows the curve of the rear wheel. The seat stays were dropped on the C:68X, but now have a horizontal kink before they meet the seat tube, to aid aerodynamics.
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