A few months ago I was out riding to Kinglake with some friends when one of them (in between the torture he was dishing out) pointed down to his wheels and shouted in excitement "hey check out my new Core Carbon titanium skewers".
Using what little energy I had available (between heaving breaths) I mustered up the words "yeah.. they look sweet", to which he promptly replied "they are really awesome, 45 grams and only $50... you should get some".
I had never heard of Core Carbon; but during a brief rest stop at Kinglake my mate gave me the low down about how it was a new Australian company started up by some local guys with the idea of manufacturing and importing high end cycling parts and accessories.
Fast forward two weeks; I am sitting at work minding my own business when I get a call from a different friend telling me how my titanium skewers had turned up and that I owed him $50 because he paid for them on my behalf. I was a little confused as I couldn't actually recall asking for a set of the skewers; but nevertheless I ponied up the $50 and took delivery of my new skewers.
Back at home the skewers sat on a shelf under some magazines for a couple of months until I remembered that I had them stuffed away somewhere. As you can tell fitting them to my bike hadn't exactly been high on my list of things to do.
Before eventually fitting the skewers to my bike I gave them a quick weigh; to my pleasant surprise they actually came in less than than the claimed weight of 45 grams at a meagre 41 grams... impressive.
The finish on the skewers is first class; as expected they fit the bike easy enough and have a solid locking action. The only issue I found was with the springs which could have been of a slightly higher quality. The springs handled the job well enough; but were not robust enough for my personal taste and I ended up swapping these out for the springs that I had been running on my previous Easton skewers.
I have now been riding on these for about a month and from what I can tell the skewers provide little to no performance advantage over the stock skewers I was running. They are also somewhat prone to the squeaks (especially when out of the saddle). In saying that they are definitely lighter than my old skewers and look awesome on the bike. All in all very good for a $50 impulse purchase.
In addition to the titanium skewers, Core Carbon are releasing some really good value carbon clincher wheelsets in 38mm, 58mm and 85mm rim depths; I am hoping to have a write up on these soon.
The website is not quite up yet, but at some stage in the future you should be able to find and purchase the skewers and full selection of wheels at www.corecarbon.com.au
~VL
