Schmolke Carbon | Handmade German Ultralight Carbon Components | Rubi Workshop

A company that began
with the first road bar
made of carbon.

Schmolke Carbon was founded in 1992 by mechanical engineer Stefan Schmolke in Konstanz, a city on the shore of Lake Constance in southern Germany. He raced from a young age with his brother Matthias, and in 1989, just before graduating, the two opened a high-end parts shop. That same year he wrote his diploma thesis on the theory of a carbon racing handlebar.

The following year he built a carbon handlebar that could actually be ridden, and when orders outgrew what he could make, he founded the company in 1992. In 2001 Jan Ullrich finished second overall at the Tour de France on a Schmolke handlebar. More than 30 years on, Schmolke still chooses quality over volume and hands over assembly lines.

Lightness you feel first,
where your hands rest.

Schmolke began with a handlebar, so the cockpit is the area it has refined the longest. The Roadbar Evo TLO is hand-wound from up to 17 prepreg layers in the heavily loaded centre and 5 in the lower curve, for high stiffness at around 130g. It adds a shape that lets the hands rest easily, 10mm of trim at each end and optional internal cable ports.

In 2026 Schmolke introduced the Roadbar Cockpit TLO and Cockpit Aero TLO, merging bar and stem into one piece. The cables disappear inside the bar and stem, and the flattened tops give the palms a broad, comfortable grip.

Light,
and made to flex.

Schmolke seatposts are known as much for their flex as for their weight. In RennRad magazine's 2012 comparison of comfort seatposts, the TLO and SL took the test victory with the greatest flex, and in 2022 Roadbike magazine's carbon seatpost test ranked Schmolke first again.

Up to 23 layers where the load is high and 7 where it is low let the post flex softly fore and aft while keeping lateral and torsional stiffness. The head clamps the rails at four points and holds round rails and oval carbon rails up to 8 x 12mm without an adapter. A Di2 battery fits inside.

55g,
a single piece of carbon.

The TLO 55 is a saddle made from a single piece of carbon, shell, frame and rails included. It weighs 55g, just as the name says. Instead of padding, the carbon shell flexes to support the rider. In its TLO saddle test, Germany's TOUR magazine found that the centre and wings of the shell flex visibly, making it more comfortable than it looks.

The SL 79 is a 130mm-wide 3K carbon saddle for road, gravel and cross-country. The SL 99 and SL 109 add a leather or non-leather cover to a carbon shell, for riders who want a touch of cushioning with their light weight.

Wheelsets
under a kilogram.

Instead of complex one-piece moulding, Schmolke wheels are built the traditional way, lacing very light parts together by hand. Rims laid up by hand from thin, circularly woven prepreg are paired with 24 carbon spokes with titanium end pieces and Extralite or NONPLUS hubs.

The second-generation TLO 37 weighs 840g a pair, a climbing wheelset that took first place in Roadbike magazine's test. The TLO 50 came in at 940g with 50mm rims, which BikeRadar called the lightest 50mm wheelset it had seen. For gravel there is the TLO Gravel PI ROPE, with textile spokes of 2.2g each.

The same standard,
for small wheels too.

Schmolke also makes carbon parts for folding bikes. The TLO lowriser for the Brompton T Line has a 15mm rise and 6° sweep and weighs 80 to 95g at 560 to 600mm wide. Each end can be trimmed by up to 10mm.

Folding bikes leave a long stretch of seatpost exposed, so the weight difference is large. The 500 to 600mm TLO folding seatpost weighs 159g at 31.8 x 600mm, saving up to half the weight of a typical steel post. The 16 inch TLO carbon rim weighs 185g.

The right Schmolke for your bike

Check width, reach and drop for handlebars, diameter and exposed length for seatposts, and tyre width and system weight for wheels. Figures follow Schmolke's official specifications, and weights are as stated by the manufacturer.

From a single diploma thesis
to the benchmark for the lightest parts.

A carbon handlebar born from an engineering student's thesis reached the Tour de France podium, and some 30 years later became a 5.4kg complete bike. Rather than announcing new prototypes all the time, Schmolke has kept to delivering what it makes quickly and taking care over every single order.