Innovation demands depth of knowledge, decades of experience and the mysterious elixir called creativity. And that’s just the beginning. To get it all to work in the real world takes an indomitable will to excellence. SHIMANO’s legendary standards of performance have been realized only through endless experimentation, tireless laboratory and field-testing, and a continual dialogue with the best professional riders on the Pro Tour and World Cup circuits. All of this came to bear on the question of how best to overcome torsional load, especially during sprints. Ultimately SHIMANO focused its innovative guns on rear spoke stiffness and front wheel aerodynamics. After developing a wider flange hub shell and combining it with an off-set rim, lateral rigidity was greatly improved, without increasing dish. This enabled pulling spokes – with a straight pull and two-cross lacing pattern – to be moved to the drive side. Because they are tighter and pull much better, the doubling of pulling spokes resulted in more than twice the torsional (rotational) torque. To maximize aerodynamic performance, a series of wind tunnel tests in SHIMANO’s state-of-the-art facilities drove the decision of a using a balanced 16-spoke front wheel featuring aero-type spokes for optimized air resistance.