[Eddy@ApexWheels]

They took a wheel that was JWL/VIA certified for a certain load rating (industry standard), they then shaved 3.96lbs of material off it. Although they say the wheel is "still capable of enduring the driving field without fracturing", the wheel is clearly a weak, and would fail a strength test at the minimum required strength rating.

I absolutely agree that design has a lot more to do with rigidity then material (forged vs. cast...), but it's actually an apples to oranges comparison because one wheel is extra weak.

You are not going to get 3.96lbs of material off a wheel by removing material from the front and back of a hub. The material between the lugs on the backside is weight you can reduce without weaking the wheel. BBS does a really nice job of this on their die forged wheels. To reduce weight that much you have to take material off the spokes or even the barrel. And if you do that, you've made a really weak wheel.

When doing some initial testing years ago, I found that a slight change in spoke design that only effected a 0.2lb reduction in overall weight, in some cases resulted in spokes cracking during crush testing. At a lower load rating the spokes wouldn't crack. We went through 3 rounds of crush testing on a prototype after that just to study these minor changes. Those changes also effect rigidity.

Just as an example, adding 2mm~ of material to the backside of the spokes on our 17" wheels added about 0.8lbs~ of weight. Consider how much needs to be removed to save 3+ lbs if you can only find a fraction of a pound in savings around the hub area.

The point is, if you make a wheel weak, it will suck. Does that mean light weight wheels are nearly as weak as the one tested in the article above? No, because almost no manufacturers produce wheels that sacrifice that much strength. The only way a wheel could be that weak, would be to not meet strength requirements. Sadly there are wheel manufacturers out there that willing sacrificed strength in exchange for reduced weights. They produce/ed wheels below required load ratings, even though they claim compliance and certification.