Revel Bikes turns composite waste into tyre levers
A recycling programme launched by Revel Bikes is taking on the issue of where old composite carbon products go at the end of life.
In the process of creating the firm’s RW30 wheelset, Revel Bikes held on to each prototype, keen to understand whether the non production versions could be recycled into something useful, rather than end up in landfill.
Working alongside its partner, CSS Composites, the firm has come up with a tyre lever that it says is the first step into ensuring no material is wasted during the manufacturing process.
To create the lever old rims and process scraps are chopped up into pieces and put through an industrial shredder. Those chopped pieces are then brought back up to temperature and compression molded into the tyre lever.
Revel Bikes founder Adam Miller said of the process: “It takes a lot of prototype rims to create a high quality wheelset like the RW30. We worked with our manufacturer, CSS Composites, and saved every single prototype and every single bit of process scrap and have been busy experimenting with what we can turn all that excess material into. FusionFiber not only creates a stronger and lighter rim, it also uses none of the harmful epoxy found in traditional carbon fiber products. This allows us to recycle every rim and excess scrap material that comes from the manufacturing process. We take great pride in knowing that there is no reason for our rims to ever see a landfill.”
Given the FusionFiber material’s high-strength properties, the six-inch long lever is an upgrade on the typical plastic lever and at not too dissimilar a price. Levers will now be sold via the brand’s dealer network and RevelBikes.com at only $15.
The issue of waste and how to minimise its impact has become a hot topic for the cycling industry, with many firm’s sprucing up their production line and sales channel‘s eco-credentials. In a bid to minimise the impact on landfill, the UK has now moved to make it illegal to scrap bicycle tyres, bringing legislation in line with that applying to the automotive trade.
