Storck April Fool's weight record

Yesterday, April 1, 2020, an exciting press release reached us from Storck Bicycle GmbH: they claimed to have achieved an incredible weight record in the manufacture of a carbon frame. Given the date, the somewhat unbelievable story, and the fact that there was nothing about it on Storck's homepage, let alone anywhere else, I thought it was an April Fool's joke, so we didn't publish the announcement. Today we asked the marketing man responsible, Mario Kuban. His answer, "April Fool's Day." It's nice to see that Storck hasn't lost its sense of humor in times of the Corona virus.

I do not want to withhold yesterday's message here. It read as follows:

April 1, 2020, Storck Bicycle sets new weight record
Storck Bicycle presents first road bike carbon frame with only 500 g weight. Helium Panel Technology (HPT) is used for the first time. By using the Helium Panel Technology HPT developed by Storck Bicycle, it has been possible for the first time to produce a carbon road bike frame suitable for everyday use with a weight of only 500 grams. After approximately 3 years of development work, the first Aernario.2 series frame manufactured according to the new production process was received on Tuesday, March 31, 2020. The scales showed exactly 502 grams, thus the target weight of the HPT project of 500 grams had been successfully realized.

HPT is a patented production process in which some carbon panels, only a few millimeters thick, are integrated into the frame structure. The special feature of these panels is the high helium content of the core. It leads to noticeable weight reductions that raise carbon frame construction to a whole new level. For Storck Bicycle, this is another milestone in the history of remarkable developments in the field of carbon components. As early as 1999, Markus Storck introduced the world's lightest carbon fork for road bikes, weighing in at 280 grams at the time. With the Scenario C 0.9 carbon road bike frame, Storck Bicycle was able to present a frame weighing less than 1 kg for the first time in 2003, and this was followed in 2007 by the Fascenario frame-fork set weighing 1,294 grams, which at the time was the lightest road bike set ever measured according to Tour magazine. With the frames and components developed and produced on the basis of Helium Panel Technology, Storck Bicycle opens another door to a new era of lightweight carbon components suitable for everyday use.

Once hand on heart, "Would you have believed the news?"