How Carbon Fiber Rims Work, and What Makes FusionFiber Different

Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast

Singletracks.com

Sports, Wilderness

4.7 • 574 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Travis Tomczak is the Global Marketing Director at Forge + Bond. The company manufactures bike wheels and accessories using a lightweight material known as FusionFiber.

How does carbon fiber rim manufacturing generally work?
What are some of the challenges associated with carbon fiber manufacturing?
Are there limitations in terms of how the material can be used, or how it performs?
How is FusionFiber different from carbon fiber in terms of the materials used and the manufacturing process?
How are sheets of FusionFiber manufactured?
How is a sheet of FusionFiber shaped into a product at Forge+Bond, for example a rim?
Are there any performance advantages of FusionFiber over traditional carbon fiber?
Is it more expensive to manufacture rims from FusionFiber than carbon fiber?
Is FusionFiber infinitely recyclable, or does the material degrade each time it's recycled? Can the scraps or recycled rims, for example, be used to create new rims?
Where can consumers recycle their FusionFiber rims?
With so many different polymer choices and layups available, could a particular blend of FusionFiber make sense for handlebars or even bike frames?
What is Forge+Bond's connection to CSS Composites, the company that produces FusionFiber rims for brands like Evil and Revel?
With such a new material and technology, what sort of product testing has Forge+Bond done? How do you handle product warranty claims?
What's next for Forge+Bond?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Single Tracks podcast is brought to you by TPC, the Proz Closet.
0:04.6	Spring is the perfect time to upgrade, and TPC has an industry-leading selection of new and
0:10.0	certified pre-owned bikes, plus frames, wheels, and accessories.
0:14.7	Each certified, pre-owned bike is inspected, tested, and serviced, and every bike includes 30-day
0:20.6	returns. Visit tpc.bike
0:23.3	forward slash single tracks and intercode single tracks 40 to save $40 on every order over 200.
0:30.6	That's the pros closet at tpc.bike slash single tracks and look for the link and coupon code
0:37.4	in the show notes.
0:38.5	Hey everybody, welcome to the single tracks podcast.
0:41.7	My name is Jeff and today my guest is Travis Tomzak.
0:45.9	Travis is the global marketing director at Forge and Bond.
0:49.9	The company manufactures bike wheels and accessories using a lightweight material known as fusion fiber.
0:57.0	Thanks for joining us, Travis.
0:59.7	Right on.
1:00.1	Thanks for having me, Jeff.
1:01.2	So before we get into talking about fusion fiber, let's talk a little bit about carbon fiber and how that's used to make mountain bike rims in particular.
1:12.0	How does the process generally work?
1:14.5	Yeah, so, I mean, most of, most if not all of the carbon composites that are in our space are
1:23.2	typically a thermoset base, meaning that it's, you have a carbon fiber textile mixed with
1:32.1	an epoxy, a glue. And that's, I mean, that is how, again, the wheels, the frames, whatever,
1:39.2	handlebars that are, they're all laid up that way and done with the epoxy as the bonding agent that then is,
1:46.6	you know, cured, hand-laid, etc.
	...

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