Partington gives Lightweight a run for their money?
 

I had never heard of Partington wheels (https://www.partington.cc/). Not until I got an email from Above Category today. Looks like Lightweight has competition!

Their website (at a quick glance) is pretty much devoid of any information about the company. I'd be very suspicious that this is just a marketing company spec'ing, shipping and branding wheels from an OEM in Asia.

Maybe I am wrong, and they have their own shop... but if they did, I'd think they would feature that.

And here was I thinking that 3 grand for car wheels is an absurd amount of money...

but really, they look like any rim from a taiwan brand that costs $200 a pop then with some fancier spokes and propietary hub?

You're kind of wrong in that their website is definitely not up to snuff, but Partington is 100% legit and pretty well known in the Australian handmade community:
https://cyclingtips.com/tag/partington/

From CT article a couple months ago:

Looks like a sub of an Australian company: https://partington.com.au/

Partington Advanced Engineering

Still doesn't talk about their manufacturing...looks like they design and prototype though. Maybe the wheels are a prototype project?

What does "Max System Weight: 110" mean?

If I am ~65lbs heavier than those wheels can tolerate it's a non-starter...

Surely it means kg. Mixing imperial and metric measurements is for mountain bikes. :)

That should be in Kg

so...who is buying this? ;)

I mean apart from the stiffness (that end users cannot measure), the wheelset is kinda around the same ballpark weight as the roval alpinist clx.
the alpinist is "only' $2500. granted that it is made in taiwan(?) and is not tubeless compatiple.

The same people who are buying Baums, Bastions and Provas.

Everyone knows a Tarmac with Roval wheels will be faster, but the custom Aussie or other nationality customer will take pride in outfitting their bling ride with a veblen good

I would consider these, but I only run 24+mm internal width hookless rims these days. 21mm is too narrow.

w/a buck getting you ~1.32 AU, you might as well take a trip to pick up a set.

Funny how they 'found' the right US retail partner for a one-stop-shop.

They charge AU$7K = US$5.3K, so seems fair.

Thanks for the info. It is (in my opinion) always good to know who the 'real manufacturers' are versus the folks that spec designs and have a manufacturer do the hard work. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with outsourcing manufacturing unless you try to misrepresent it.

Asian factories are so sophisticated now, many can do the design, prototypes, and testing. So it is really easy to start up a wheel company with a good graphic designer, some connections to influencers and a slick website... All the knowledge on actually building wheels lives somewhere else. At that point, what does the brand even represent?

I'd be willing to bet a large amount of $$ that these wheels are slow AF compared to any modern day HED/Zipp/Enve wheelset.
Big bladed spokes like those are not aero, and lightweight <> speed unless you are living in 1990....... Aero trumps weight by a long shot.