After almost 30 years of working with composite materials as a blue collar and as a designer in engineering, I have now come to the conclusion that there is simply too much hazardous waste being produced.
Pretty awesome stuff, but funny that, after all that automation, they build the wheels by hand. Maybe it's editing, or they simply true them by hand, but it's amusing nonetheless.
@@kulchatha4657they're still great even if they're ads. The good thing is they're clearly telling you it's an ad. Even the thumbnail said it. I like to know how stuff is made and I'm sure lots of other GCN viewers do.
Because it is largely a new technology, the price initially will be high to recover R&D and investment costs (machines etc.). But at least in theory, over time when the technology gets more widely adopted, the price will go down.
Anything new (such as new material = new product = new machines = new labour personel = new techniques = new training for work = more expensive advertisements etc.etc.etc…
@@Epiqe new material - cheaper material new product - no comment new machine - old processes ask for new machines all the time too, everything has a lifespan new labor - freed from old work new techniques - same, just replace older new training - a) all workers learn as they work anyway b) new techniques are more automatizes, less learning needed more expensive ads - new product is easier to advertise than anything same but 1% ligher/stiffer/more aero
@@DarenC it was a story about an American business, producing goods in an American factory. If it was a British factory I would understand. I am surprised you're not crying they spelt fibre in the title 'incorrectly'. Add an edit here, seems you have already sulked about that, at least you're consistant.
A company back in the 1990s known as Spin, was making a tri spoke wheel with what they called thermoplastic carbon fiber. It seemed like they were using a similar process to what you showed, but maybe not quite as efficiently done. Their product was significantly more affordable, but heavier than the competition. And there are techniques of recycling, Carbon fiber. There are machines that will burn away the epoxy, leaving behind dry fiber I saw a demonstration where they loaded in a broken bicycle frame and out came just the dry carbon fiber strands.
You are going to expend fuel energy, put bonding chemicals into the air, to recover broken tortured fiber that you do what with? What nonsense, just throw it out.
Carbon fibre is the corporate bike industry shitting on the idea of bikes being environmentally friendly and selling it like it's an advantage. Pricing them like motorbikes isn't helping either.
I don’t understand how they “weld” together the two rim halves in the mold. I assume that there are further carbon layers overlapped to join the two rim halves, otherwise the finished rim would have no structural integrity. But I cannot make out in the video such a detail in the process.
I know a llittle of how such things works, in the traditional way yes, you would need some overlap. in this way the use of nylon squeezed and heated together, will create a bond just as strong, like the guy said, nylon matrix can be reheated over and over with no loss, so it will melt and set in the mould, I know of some Glue's used for bonding CF prop shafts to metal parts within the F1 industry, it's aerospace glue, stinks like fuck... and I mean it's horrible a/f, but in 12hours that glue is stronger than the rest of the carbon fibre part, the carbon would break first before the glue would ever fail. makes you wonder though.... just make components out of the glue alone lol. and they will have used something like FE mapping and real physical world mechanical stress testing to prove the strength of the part (In this case a wheel). so they will be good. the real question is... are they stronger/lighter or same equivalent as traditional layup.... and at least cheaper, seeing as how the process is robotised.
That was my question too-the way it appeared, there would be a “seam” running along the spoke bed that’s just stuck together with resin and no fiber reinforcement.
just like in a conventional weld material from two parts mix up, here the ends of carbon strands interlock. Yes, it's not as strong and effective from standpoint of material utilization, but sufficient and surely not presenting a distinct seperation like a glued joint.
If you visit this company's website, you will be surprised to find the wheelset price. Despite the claims of saving human labor and production wastes, the MSRP for the gravel wheelset is quite steep.
Another rip off for us all to buy at thousands for a set of rims omg .... So now they want us to buy wheels and carbon with no waste and no human labour ? No jobs then just profit ? Nice pmsl
@@gordonhenderson1965 Buy all the machinery, build the required molds and make carbon wheels yourself. Do not violate any of the hundreds laws regulating the industry in the process. At the end let us know how much you are going to price the parts you produce...
Ollie did also spend a reasonable chunk of time discussing how much time, effort, expense, and expertise, went into working out how to make these things though. Much like everything else you've just got to factor in recouping R&D etc
@@andreamig1 Why should I be bothered about their machines? If it is more expensive than traditional tech and provides few benefits (like nebulous recyclability), why pay the premium?
Good video! I had heard Trek was on to this and saw that Lauf was using them on their gravel bikes, so cool to see the process. Will be curious to see how the MTB wheels are and if it expands to more aero shapes and sizes for TT bikes.
Same I'm curious though from this video I still think traditional carbon fiber is better so far I'm still going Ibis S28 for my next rims I'm building for my enduro bike
Thermoplastics composite nylon in cycling has been around a long time. Examples as Modolo downtube shifters and brake levers from the 1980's and GT made a full squish MTB out of the materials. I do have a road tubular pair of rims made in this same material sold by a company in the UK called Matrix. Its a deep rim and I'm using with a rim brake. (Note: Not the same Matrix company or brand as USA Trek owned.)
Really? I would expect thermoplastic rims to be completly incompatible with rim brakes. The glass transition temperautures for most thermopatics is in the 50-150c range, well under temperqtues that rim brakes see.
@@BenFriesen1 Skyway Tuff Wheels (nylon for the regular ones introduced in the 1970s, carbon-reinforced nylon for the graphite ones that were introduced in the 1980s) have been used with rim brakes for as long as they've existed. Skyway even sells special brake pads for use with them, and they have since at least the 1980s: "The Skyway BMX slim brake pads have been designed for use with the Iconic Skyway Tuff wheels. Available in many colors to compliment the Skyway Tuff wheels, this pad features a threaded stud and is compatible with modern V-brakes, old-school caliper & U brakes."
This is my favourite GCN Tech video ever! The one question I'm left with though is how do the two halves come together? Certainly the spokes would pull through a seam down the middle and the tyre pressure would push that seam apart.
I would imagine that the heat and pressure created inside the mold softens the nylon and forces it to fill the seam between the two rim halves, in like fashion to the earlier process where the strips were patched together and pressed at high temperature to make the flat annular disk for the rim.
@@johnbarron4265 Don't forget that spokes are installed with a great deal of tension and see even more in use, especially drive side and while braking. All of that tension is concentrated into tiny little spoke nipples.
I'm guessing this nylon matrix wouldn't stand up to temperatures generated by rim brakes. Particularly since I did not see any evidence of brake tracks on the edges of the rims.
Rim breaks are doomed , BUT , disc brakes are ripping the spokes through the rims and causing huge cracks from one spoke to the next on most bikes but there keeping that out the press and media ? Have 3 friends with cracked rims ? Discs cause the breaking forces to use the spokes not the rim so spokes can't take the forces and ruin the rims ? Not good but all kept quite .........
Rim brakes are not doomed, I have enough medium and long reach calipers to last the rest of my life. Even if the bike industry tries to force me onto cheaper tech they won't be able to.
@@curtisducati What's even more scary is that on my MTB's, for which there's no question that disks are better (At least for anyone who rides in mud), I'm still getting failures where the rim cracks from spoke to spoke, and this was on Hope XC wheels - after the second failure, rather than bothering warrantying it again I just replaced the rim with a WTB one that had the same ERD and that's been perfect since though. I've had a load of trials bike rims fail like this too, but trials is the only MTB sport where rim brakes are more popular at professional level than disks, so the rims aren't necessarily tested to withstand disk braking forces. Trials riders grind the braking surface of the rim with an angle grinder to make it as rough as possible, so the brake locks 100% solid, but this means it howls very loudly when the brake is dragged while rolling, which is why I'll stay with my nearly silent disks instead.
Oy Ollie! What's all this Fahrenheit nonsense? Only a few ex-colonials use that archaic stuff. Amazing considering the machinery itself is very likely calibrated in Celsius.
Great video but you missed the details of key stage. How are the two sides bonded together. That for me is the most critical as it has the spoke forces applied there and could catastrophically separate the join failed.
I'd imagine there's a reasonably sized overlap down the center: so the spoke nipples would go through both the left and right side of the rim and the 'bonded area' would be wider than the nipples. So the rim bed would be "double thickess" and the two seams not in contact with the holes. The great thing about using thermoplastic for the matrix is it how can be fully melted again and again, so to answer your question, the two halves are likely joined in a process that would be a sort of combination of compression molding and conventional casting/drop forging. With resin carbon you have the matrix starting as liquid, then compress and cure it, with thermoplastic you heat the material whenever you need to, to make the matrix into a liquid temporarily.
Being left uncoated or untreated otherwise, I'm wondering how they managed to overcome the strong hygroscopic behaviour of nylon. Nylon can absorb up to 8% of his weight in water.
you kind of want to have nylon absorbing water, most of the "nylon" we are used to in the everyday is almost fully saturated. Dry nylon is brittle and quite stiff, this applies to basically almost all plastic polymers, most nylon products go through a conditioning chamber to be water saturated before the end of the production cycle. Basically you want dry nylon in production to avoid, generally, hydrolysis of the polymers due to boil-off and the stringy/messy nature of wet nylon. During normal use you definitely want wet nylon due to the more flexible yet resilient nature of the wet polymer.
@@andy_liga I think the concern more so regards internal stresses and holding dimensional tolerance on a part where the material is hydrating after manufacture.
American-made wheels is certainly attractive to me (and almost unheard of.) Hopefully Forge & Bond will expand to road wheels at some point and hopefully lower prices over time as they sell more wheels.
Thermoplastic/carbon fiber bikes were made by GT(?) in the '90s. The advantages were recyclability (not sure how), impact toughness, and the improved damping you mentioned. Disadvantages were inferior strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight, and that components like downtube shifters and cable stops needed clips to attach them because they couldn't be glued on. Interesting tech, thanks
@@craesh I'd go for scientifically illiterate over lazy - when your job is to fawn over every new product because doing so is literally what pays the bills, there's no room for integrity and having actual engineering knowledge is a disadvantage because they might actually feel some guilt over the claims they're making.
Pretty cool and interesting, also the fact that it appears a lot more environmentally friendly is a big step forward. Would like to know if there is any perceivable performance / feel difference between traditional pre-preg and these modern forged components
@@The_Ballo The video covers it but mainly on 2 axis. On one side, the pieces can be re-molded into something else, meaning if your frame breaks, it could potentially be recycled and turned into another item, whereas tradional carbon fiber is disposed of in the trash. Second, the overall making of the parts seems to be much less energy consuming - the video doesn't go much into detail here but notice how with epoxy carbon the storage is a freezer, later an oven, etc.
Freezers gone, lay up mechanised, autoclave gone, humans to layup and trim gone, laser etching, decals, painting gone, mechanical spoke drilling - and to save the final production cost it’s recyclable. I can’t wait to the see the filter down to the consumer in significantly lower priced carbon wheels ???????
price is usually not determined by cost plus x but rather what the public is willing to pay (especially when items still under patents and R&D and capital costs have to be covered)... good luck dreaming though (I expect you had your cheek full of irony/sarcasm though hence the "?'s")
@@JermTheCow two ways - sell a few at high margin or sell many at lower margin. The bike industry is on its knees at the moment and needs to re invigorate the consumer as there is a lot of publicity about the industry having been greedy over the last few years.
im sure they will not reduce the retail price of wheels in a significant way, this will just increase their profit margins and products build this way could also be inferior.
@@swifty0000007100% agree with you. It's often a knife's edge though, personally, I think the "greed" aspect is somewhat overhyped, there are a lot of "hidden" costs and other risks in maintaining a sustainable business, especially ones that involve innovation and engineering.
It is a cool process. But the waste is still not really fully recycled, instead it is down cycled to a lower grade product. It is something to keep in mind since traditional Aluminium can be 100% recycled to the same product.
Nylon cabon 3D print filament exists and I have used it before personally. It is very lightweight but it's integrity gets affected quite a good amount from UV rays i.e. sunlight. I'd try wheels like this, but not without some form of clear coat or at least 1-2 layers of paint to protect the nylon. These days, general carbon wheels are built extremely well, it really takes quite a lot of force to actually break or fracture a carbon rim or frame, and epoxy is well resistant to UV rays unlike nylon. I'm not saying nylon carbon is worse than traditional methods, there is definitely potential, but selling wheels without adding some paint coats for protection from UV rays concerns me. This would be great though for things like carbon wheels, bottle cages, and other smaller more accessory products.
Interesting you say that about the UV sensitivity of the carbon. During the whole video I was wondering how their application could be used for wind turbine blades. Currently, once a wind turbine meets its end of life the typical disposal methods usually destines the blades to the land fill. This aspect of the life span of a wind turbine is under research, mainly different recycling methods, and I was wondering if this sort of tech could be used to replace the current composites used for blades so that they may be recycled better.
@@BeyReaper I think there is potential but my concern is if it’s bare nylon carbon being used vs nylon carbon coated in protective paint/coat. I think there is a use case for it as long as it’s protected.
Carbon epoxy cracks after 800 hours of use and has zero protection from UV. That's why all the carbon bikes have the super thick matte paint jobs to protect the frame.
For the sake of accuracy, (and definitely, 100%, not pedantry), usually, reinforced concrete is a mix of cement, sand, and aggregate, (i.e. stone of varying sizes), forming a matrix surrounding steel reinforcing bars (But there are other ways of making reinforced concrete.)
Love this. Thanks for doing this video. Any idea when frames will start being made of Fusion Fiber? Also, did they tell you the cost difference between Fusion Fiber and the equivalent pre-preg carbon fiber? Thanks!
If this is a cheaper way of manufacturing carbon, the industry will adopt it in no time since he industry loves lacking on the manufacturing process but charging you more for the priviledge.
Nylon-carbon not new story. It's cheaper on labor, more environmentally friendly, but less stiff on same weight, and less heat resistant. Also its melted in 300 but can be soften at less. Also it can be more fragile at lower temperatur Also there is forged carbon, its way of reusing cut off, from carbon fiber sheets
One thing I saw on their website - no rider weight limit. The price is not that bad for a nice set of Carbon wheels. Looks like they only come made with I9 hubs, so kinda crappy I can't customize what hubs I want (I'm partial to DT Swiss) but having it all be USA made, that's worth paying extra for me.
Just bought the Chris King GRD23 wheelset using the Fusion Fiber, personally I think its just a marketing gimmick and 99% of riders wont notice the difference. But they do look very very cool.
This sound like the Scott endorphin frame of the 90s, it was not carbon fibre. So nothing new ... as always. For me the future is Titanium and Aluminium. Carbon fibre is very common and has nothing special. Precision CNC parts, hand built frames, titanium or reynolds 953 Steel ... that is the top, and they are not made of that boring material. I have two bicycles and it is enought, too much carbon fibre for me ... burp!!! 🤢sorry 😁
two halves??? so, no continuous fiber goes through the middle? The wheel will brake in half pretty quickly especially if you are strong first cut fiber to small sheets? you need to add a lot more fiber to sufficiently connect(overlap) those sheets together to keep the same strength as wheel made of a continouos strip of fiber. bottom line: worth only if it will cost less than mass-market aluminium wheels
I worked 15 years ago for a company, where they produced carbon fiber parts for Aerospace. Especially for the Airbus A 380 and others. I'm a Mountain Biker since 1990. At the beginning, 11 years old, I couldn't afford a carbon frame bike. After my personal experience with the production of carbon fiber, I will never ever want a carbon frame. Remember Greg Minnaar in Val di Sole? Sant Cruise Carbon DH Frame vs pice of wood ? 13000 $ bike? SNAP, CRACK, BRABP, SHIT There will be no soul in a plastic frame, ask Lance Armstrongs Testicles🤔😁😂‼️
just ordered the shift Am mountain bike wheels and the shift CR45 road wheels. $937 each set on sale. Great price for American made high quality carbon. New to cycling, excited to see how they feel.
Neat. Now make a rim braking variant. Then I'd actually switch carbon wheels. These have the potential to be forever wheels, would just need a replaceable braking surface so it could be swapped every 15 years. Nevermind I had convinced myself bc of all the hype that they'd have improved thermal properties as well. Back to my original idea of a shallow alloy rim with a non-structural composite aero section.
Theoretically more repairable: the comparison isn't nylon vs carbon, it's nylon vs epoxy. Epoxy sets once and forever, so to repair you have to sand it back and rely on the new epoxy sticking to it. Nylon however, you could melt and reform a dozen times and it'd be just as strong as it was before. Practically less repairable: unless you can get hold of an exact aluminium/steel 3D negative mold of your wheel, any rework is likely to distort it massively, as you need to heat it to 250C to get it to flow properly and bond well, the problem with that is you'd be making the rest of the wheel soft at the same time!
PLEASE cut the bs about recycling! There is nothing wrong with simply throwing waste material away if it's not valuable enough to save. That's what landfills are for. And for the record only 5% of "recycled" materials are actually reused, "recycled" just means that it is considered for recycling even if it is not actually recycled ie disposed of.
For a process that's supposed to cut the manufacturing costs, they sure are pricey! $1900 for a pair of 25 mm deep wheels! I'll stick to the Chinese stuff...
I don't see any immediate benefits for customers because 1) the pricing of those wheels are not noticeable cheaper, if not more expensive despite the manufacturing process is more automated; 2) no particular mechanical benefits, if not disadvantages, by using nylon instead of eproxy based carbon fiber; 3) its thermo stability is still lower although you might never need that much tolerance. There is a reason why this kind of wheel is not all over the market. And, I doubt, and it is probably true, that such manufacturing technique is not so 'new' afterall, just less known to the general consumers.
$2200 for a 25mm deep wheel that weighs 1400g in the lightest config. Cool process, but apparently not competitive and inferior to standard carbon in terms of weight
I’m not saying it’s exactly the same but the technology looks very similar to the BMW i3 which came out in 2013 BMW didn’t use it for wheels which do take a hammering
Seeing new technology is cool and all but the price is out of reach for all but the wealthy and the professionals. A Forge & Bond wheel set is over $2, 000. About what I paid for the complete bike that I ride everyday.
No. This is a dead end canyon of crap performance and short lifespan that was abandoned in the early 1990s. The Nylon does not adhere to the carbon fibres or impregnate them properly. The nylon absorbs water and becomes electrically conductive and forms a battery and circuit electrically corroding any metal in contact or part of the frame. (it's called a metal-air battery. The nylon is far too low stiffness to allow the carbon fibres advantages to be realised. The inability of the nylon to wick into the fibres makes the composite full of air and unable to share load between fibres. You are wrong about heat resistance of epoxies. They go soft at 60C to 90C. But at least they adhere, impregnate, and work with the carbon fibre properly.
a new technology that requires a lot less manual labor, doesn't require expensive storing, produces less waste - so more of the material is turned into product, and is faster to make. this is why the wheels are starting at only $6999.69 a piece. a steal! imagine how expensive they would be if they used the ten times less efficient eww-normal-carbon process
Very cool new tech - hopefully in the future the cost will come down, much like most new things in the bike industry you will need to mortgage your house to get a pair of these.
Interesting... I wonder what the exact formulation of nylon is? Nylon tends to be hydroscopic and expands a bit when it absorbs water. For rims, that might not affect anything because of their round shape. Not a materials engineer, just curious
The carbon footprint of traditional carbon fibre is insanely high and we should all be aware of that when we buy a new bike (I’d suggest it should be labelled on the bike and certain components, on purchase, the carbon footprint print and a score for how easy it is to recycle) . It’s good we’ve developed a process which is less intensive. Still happy with my alu rims and Reynolds steel frame though, but I’m not looking for marginal gains and appreciate it’s a different scenario if you race.
If your going to use concrete as an example, you best learn about it first. Otherwise any one already familiar with concrete's makeup and characteristics is going to question your knowledge about whatever else you may speak about. Your credibility is weak at best.
Kinda really about time! Carbon fibre is such an old technology and definitely not as strong as it Once was with the dry layer process in the middle for all this gone mad weight saving! You will see split dry fibres in snapped Carbon fibre in the newer process of weight saving but we used to call it the cutting corners friday special gone daily! Carbon frame on pro's bikes will be double the layers say on a headtube to what you would buy from the manufacturer if wanted the same bike for example! Been there done the job know the tricks of the trade!
that's an amazing process but ollie you missed a key part what's the weight difference between the two? I'm actually disappointed in your nurdery mistake lol.
Recycled? No carbon fiber is recycled. In fact it's devilishly difficult to recycle ANY composite material. You want to recycle stuff buy a steel car with a lead acid battery.
Union Snowboard Bindings from Italy have been forging carbon for quite some time. Campagnolo rims have a finish that is even better than these featured rims, plus they don't drill the rims, the holes are moulded in. Sorry to urinate on the bonfire.
They didn’t move into bike wheel manufacturing because they are passionate about cycling. They had a board meeting and someone said “did you know we can charge anything we want?”
So the question becomes, how will they justify the obscenly over inflated price that they will charge us for those, in traditional bike indsutry fashion?
I think this new nylon composite material could also have very good application in bike shoe soles and saddle bases, where it is very useful for the end user to be able to custom mold to their liking. I wonder if this is the technology also licensed by Lemond bikes.
Oh yeah, you can do this with FusionFiber! Just heat it up to 300 degrees then stand on it for a few mins as it cools. Eventually, you’re left with a perfect form of your incinerated stubs where feet used to be. Very comfortable on the bike once the wounds heal.
Nice technology but really it should not be used in cycling especially wheels. land fills are full of carbon that can’t be re used as is the sea full of these materials nothing has been done to re use carbon as it’s very difficult to re process. Cheers from Oz🇦🇺
I don't see what the benefit of these wheels is. Seems to me like what we have now, only worse. Some Utah based company got a few machines from Germany and are making carbon wheels. So what.
So perhaps marginally better than thermoset but still not a truly recyclable material, nor is any other plastic, and thermoset can be recycled but it is an incredibly energy intensive operation. I wonder what the net gain in energy savings is in the production of this versus thermoset.
13:45 This is the absolutely hardest maintenance task to do on a bike. I expected this specific task to be done by a machine. I would rather work in a mine than straightening bike wheels.
