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Bike wheels made from Hexcel composites win Tour De France

29 Jul '14

2 min read

Hexcel congratulates Vincenzo Nibali and Team Astana on winning the 2014 Tour de France on bike wheels manufactured by CORIMA using Hexcel’s carbon fiber composites.

Corima’s AERO+ MCC is a 100% carbon fiber wheel for road bikes produced using a complete composite process. The wheel rim, spokes and hub are made from Hexcel’s HexPly UD Prepregs and Prepregs based on Hexcel’s unique lightweight gap-free carbon fabric called PrimeTex.

The high performance wheel weighs only 1,000 grams for a pair thanks to the low density of carbon fiber in the prepreg that assures a very accurate weight distribution and provides a very light rim with good rotation inertia. Very high levels of stiffness are achieved, enhancing performance and the mechanical properties of the UD carbon prepreg make it possible to use only 12 spokes for both the front and rear wheels, for a unique aerodynamic design.

Hexcel and Corima have worked in partnership for over 20 years and Corima has benefited from Hexcel’s experience in carbon fiber, weaving technologies and prepregs to develop winning solutions in composites for high performance bikes.

Hexcel Corporation is a leading advanced composites company. It develops, manufactures and markets lightweight, high-performance structural materials, including carbon fibers, reinforcements for composites, prepregs, honeycomb, matrix systems, adhesives and composite structures, used in commercial aerospace, space and defense and industrial applications.

Hexcel