Carbon fiber wheels propel Tour de France winner

Hexcel Composites (Duxford, Cambridge) had a helping hand in the efforts of Vincenzo Nibali during his winning ride in the 2014 Tour de France. The rider's bike wheels were manufactured by Corima (Loriol-sur-Drôme, France) using Hexcel's carbon fiber composites.

Lightweight carbon fiber bicycle wheels made light work of the Tour de France.

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 per 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," according to Hexcel.