"Bespoked was once again in Sour's hometown of Dresden, Germany a few weeks back. And even though Sour's mostly steel bikes are already made by hand locally, they decided to really pull out the stops for the world's largest handmade bike show. A few unique builds and retro MTB inspiration led to some cool custom bikes. But it was really this combination carbon and steel road bike that stole the Sour show."
"The spark of an idea was to create a more sustainable performance road bike. The steel used to build modern performance bikes already has high recycled material content. But not so much for most carbon in bikes. So, instead of bonding in conventional thermoset resin bound carbon tubes, Sour worked with a local Dresden company manufacturing carbon reinforced composite tubing with high recycled carbon fiber content, bound together in a thermoplastic matrix."
Sour built the Carbon Crush, a prototype road bike that pairs butted 4130 steel construction with thermoplastic carbon tubes made from high recycled carbon fiber content. The project aimed to create a more sustainable performance road bike by using fully recyclable thermoplastic carbon rather than conventional thermoset-resin carbon. The thermoplastic carbon tubes are tougher and more impact-resistant and already include recycled content, though they can be slightly heavier and less stiff than top epoxy carbon. The Space Cake steel frame was modified by cutting out the seat tube and machining a large headtube window before bonding the carbon tubes. All tubing was manufactured locally in Dresden and bonded in-house, keeping engineering and manufacturing on a local supply chain.
Read at Bikerumor
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