Racing kayak, bike adopt spread tow reinforcements

Thule Adventure team is one of the highest ranked multi-sport teams in the world, and with their new kayaks reinforced by spread tow fabric they hope to win another world championship. Spread tow fabric is made by spreading carbon fiber tows into tapes and then weaving fabric from these unidirectional tapes.

Lightweight kayak and bike employ ultra-light spread tow fabric.

TeXtreme spread tow fabric reinforcements from Oxeon AB (Borås, Sweden) are reportedly flexible and tow-size independent, which enables development of optimized reinforcement solutions tailor-made for specific application needs. Utilization of TeXtreme spread tow carbon fabrics and carbon UD tapes by manufacturers of advanced aerospace, industrial and sports products reportedly leads to 20-30% lighter composite parts with improved mechanical properties and superior surface smoothness.

The Thule team has racing K1 kayaks that are special made for multi-sports. Martin Flinta, Team Leader of Thule Adventure Team says: "We wanted to reduce weight but keep the strength and with TeXtreme they could achieve just that. When you race for several days in a row, and cover such great distances it is important to have the best possible gear and really lightweight products."

TeXtreme has also been used by Berria Bike in their new 2016 bikes. "TeXtreme has allowed us to build bike frames that have ultra light weight combined with for us previously unthinkable high stiffness values. This has improved the reactivity and the feature set of our bikes," says David Vitoria, R & D Manager of Berria Bike.

TeXtreme is the next generation of carbon fiber material in the sporting goods industry. It is based on using spread tows instead of yarns to achieve materials that are used to produce ultra-light weight and high-performance products. Companies utilizing the TeXtreme Technology achieve better properties on weight, stiffness, and strength compared to those using other conventional carbon fiber materials.