Weight is critical when you’re racing. Saving pounds and grams is important when you’re racing against others in a race or against the clock. There comes a point with any bike, once you’ve upgraded the wheels, forks, tyres and other major parts, where it gets harder to shed any more weight.

Mt Zoom provides just the solution. Specialising in super lightweight components, from skinny disc rotors to flyweight carbon spacer, they’ve got some impressive weight saving opportunities for the weight weenies out there (who else is a closet weight weenie?).

What we like about Mt Zoom is that all the parts have been thoroughly and extensively tested by Ant White, one of the UK’s most successful and popular endurance racers. He’s proved himself to be one of the fastest over 24-hours, taking some impressive titles not only here in the UK but also competing around the world.

Ant puts plenty of miles into the products before he’s happy to put the Mt Zoom seal of approval on them. That’s backed up by supporting some of the other seriously fast endurance racers with Mt Zoom parts, giving Ant plenty of feedback that he can use to further develop and build on the portfolio of products.

So what have we got?

Many, like I do, prefer to use a bottle and cage for shorter rides, or races. The Titanium Gripper arguably isn’t as fancy as a carbon cage but I personally prefer the slightly old school looks. And it’s as light as any cage in the world at just 25g. The really neat thing about a titanium cage is the ability to squeeze the cage in a little to clamp tighter on a bottle. £21.99

The Speed Wheels are a pair of light weight jockey wheels packing ceramic bearings for smooth rolling and longevity and they’ve proved themselves in some hard rides – Josh Ibbett used them on his record-breaking ride of the South Downs Way Double last summer.

They weigh just 5.6g each, and with the huge amount of machining they shouldn’t clog up, mud will instead be easily squashed through the holes. They’re slide from 7075 aluminium and anodised red. These are my favourite Mt Zoom item as they look so damn good in the rear mech, far smarter than the boring black plastic ones fitted as standard. They cost £31.49 a pair.

Another good place to save weight is at the axles, with a pair of the company’s The Monroe skewers fitted. Weight is 47g for the pair thanks to titanium axles. The levers are nicely ergonomic and nice to operate, and slide on brass washers. A two-piece ball and socket nut at the end makes for a better grip on dropouts. £34.99 a pair, and available in red or black.

My bike currently has an unsightly assortment of spacers between the stem and headset, so I’m going to replace with this Olympic Spacers. They’re claimed to be 33% lighter than standard carbon spacers, due to the excess material on the inner surface being machined away. Weight is 1.2g for a 5mm and 2.4g for a 10mm. Sold in paces of five for £7.99.

And for the final detail, how about this 5g top cap and stem bolt? It’s made from one piece of aluminium, with a decent depth to the 5mm Allen key so you get good purchase when tightening it up. Costs £9.99.

Not wearing the Mt Zoom logo but selling through the same XC Racer shop are these Alligator rotors. Ant said we had to try them out so we couldn’t say no. They’re just about lighter than anything else out there. We’ve got a pair of 160mm rotors; each one weighs 76g – that’s a lot less than the 136g of the XTR rotors they’re replacing. And we thought XTR was light!

With nine colours to choose from and a unique design, they’re an essential upgrade for anyone looking to shed a bit of weight from their bike. And, at £16.94 each, they’re reassuringly affordable.

Full reviews soon once we’ve done plenty of miles on the parts.

http://mtzoom.com and www.xcracer.com/shop/ for more info and details on all the products.