New Partington MKII R

Aug 08, 2023

High-end Australian wheel brand claims high stiffness as well as ultra-low weight for its latest wheelset

Partington.cc, the Australian niche wheel brand, has launched its latest disc brake wheelset, the MKII R-Series. The brand says the wheels are the result of two years of development and the wheelset has a claimed weight of just 1,160g for the pair, making them among the lightest road bike wheels you can buy and candidates for shortlisting among the best lightweight wheels. The front has a claimed weight of 530g and the rear 630g.

It says that the low weight hasn’t been bought at the expense of stiffness though, with what it claims is a class-leading 55Nm.

The wheels are manufactured with carbon spokes with a rim-to-rim design, where the 20 asymmetric bladed spokes pass across the hub shell from one side of the rim to the other. It’s a similar construction technique to what can be seen in other ultra-lightweight carbon spoked wheels, such as the Syncros Capital SL, which has a claimed weight just 10g heavier at 1,170g and the Mavic Cosmic Ultimate 45 Disc wheelset with a claimed 1,255g weight.

The Partington MKII R-Series wheels have a 39mm deep front and 44mm deep rear profile, with a 21mm internal, 26.5mm external width hooked rim that Partington says can be run tubeless or with inner tubes. The carbon rim features a low-density, aerospace-grade foam core that Partington claims helps enhance the rim’s stiffness.

Jon Partington, Partington founder said “Our wheels are designed as an integrated system, with all components designed to work together and optimise the performance of the wheel. Riding on a set of partington.cc MKII R-Series wheels reveal just how genuinely transformative they are. Other wheels ask you to accept trade-offs: stiffness for comfort, or weight for cornering performance. With the MKII R-Series, we’ve managed to unify all these aspects for a ride like no other.”

The brand says the hub shell has been designed in partnership with CeramicSpeed and features a carbon shell and what they call Dynamic Bearing Architecture tech, CeramicSpeed ceramic bearings also come as standard. There’s a ratchet freehub, though Partington doesn’t say which standards it supports, we understand the wheels are at least compatible with Shimano and Sram groupsets.

Partington says that it’s taken two years to develop the new wheels, which will initially be available in this 39/44mm depth and a satin clear painted finish. This suggests that other options may be available in future. At present, it’s the only wheelset sold by the Geelong-based wheelmaker.

The new wheelset is available to pre-order from Partington’s site and selected dealers, with a price of AU$8,999 / $5989 / £4640

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Paul has been on two wheels since he was in his teens and he's spent much of the time since writing about bikes and the associated tech. He's a road cyclist at heart but his adventurous curiosity means Paul has been riding gravel since well before it was cool, adapting his cyclo-cross bike to ride all-day off-road epics and putting road kit to the ultimate test along the way.

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