We have made various bicycle related components over the years. Those are gathered on this page and into one gallery.

Disc Wheel

We have an instructable explaining how to build your own disc wheel. The disc wheel consists of an NC turned three-piece aluminium fixed-fixed hub, carbon fiber laminates and an aluminium clincher rim. The wheel is trued using conventional spokes and one of the carbon laminates is bonded to the hub flange and rim side wall. The spokes are cut off and a carbon laminate is bonded on the other side with four strips of PET foam acting as core material (optional). The foam could be left out since the laminates are quite stable. We use aerospace grade prepreg carbon to make the side plates.

Carbon fiber handlebar with embedded LEDs

The stem is CNC machined from aluminium and accommodates batteries and a forward facing LED array. The handlebar is a full carbon, hierarchical open sandwich structure. It has two curved skins with a laser cut balsa wood core and a single ply of carbon braid (level 2 sandwich structure). Between the skins is a corrugated single-ply unidirectional carbon core (level 1). The handles themselves use a 3D printed core that gives the desired shape to the carbon braid, provides support for the thin-walled structure and houses rearward facing LEDs. Wiring from the stem to the handles runs underneath the carbon. The open sandwich structure gives sufficient torsional stiffness and allows the use of a massive cross-section without interfering with airflow too much. The details are described in an instructable we made.

Carbon fiber bullhorn handlebars

We explored using PVC pipe as a core for tubular carbon fiber handlebars. Hot sand and a hot air gun was used together with a simple jig cut from MDF to give the thermoplastic pipe the correct curvature and shape. A 31,8 mm sleeve was machined from aluminium to give the right interface with a standard OS stem. Carbon fiber braid wetted with epoxy was used to cover the pipe and perforated electrical tape was wrapped around the full length for the duration of the curing. The result can be considered a carbon fiber version of the Cinelli LA84.

Sandwich structured chainring

Aluminium was water-jet cut to give the profile of the chainring, but most material was removed from the middle. A load bearing 0.3 mm thick stainless steel sheet was bonded on both sides. The bonding process involved testing a primer system with HF acid silane compounds.

Carbon fiber fat bike mudguards

A very simple manufacturing methods was used to make fat bike mudguards out of carbon fiber. A fat bike wheel with the tire on is wrapped with a foam mattress to give suitable clearance between the tire and mudguard. The mattress is taped to the rim and covered with cellophane. Carbon fiber can now be laid on top. The glossy top surface is achieved by stretching a layer of cellophane on the laminate and leaving it to cure.