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Cycling Weekly

Sport

Anne-Marije Rook

US-made, recyclable carbon road wheels: Forge+Bond expands into road cycling with its all-new CR Series

Cycling (Organization) CSS

Forge+Bond's new CR series of recyclable carbon road wheels.

Forge+Bond, CSS Composites' in-house brand, is expanding its line of recyclable carbon wheels with the all-new CR Series. The new series is the brand's first foray into road cycling and comprises two carbon wheelsets: one sporting a 35mm-deep rim and the other a 45mm-deep rim. Both rims are recyclable and made in Gunnison, Utah.

Forge+Bond launched in 2023 with a collection of gravel and mountain bike wheels and managed to stand out in an already saturated market thanks to its exclusive use of thermoplastics to manufacture its FusionFiber carbon rims.

Most carbon components are made of sheets of epoxy-impregnated carbon fibers. The carbon fibers are 'glued' together with a resin that is cured in a chemical process called thermoset. Once cured, the resin cannot be returned to its previous form, meaning it cannot be broken down and remolded. Traditional carbon products are difficult and costly to recycle, downcycle or reuse. And so, when the carbon product —be it a bike component, a boat or a spaceship— reaches the end of its lifecycle, it is usually discarded in landfills.

The thermoplastic process used to create FusionFiber products utilizes a long-chain nylon polymer as the matrix impregnated into the base carbon fiber material. In this process, the "glue" —in this case, the nylon polymer— can be melted and reused for a new or different product. Both the scraps from the manufacturing process and a broken rim can be melted down and shaped into a new short-fiber product.

Cycling Weekly visited the Forge+Bond factory in March to see how these recyclable carbon wheels are made and discovered that the whole process is "surprisingly clean, efficient and astonishingly fast: a CSS-made wheel can go from raw materials to being ridden in less than two hours."

A wide variety of thermoplastics has been used in the aviation, aerospace, automotive, and medical industries for some time, but it's only just emerging in the bike industry. It is, however, growing. Brands like Chris King, Revel and Evil align themselves with CSS's mission of "creating products that stay out of landfills" and offer a variety of CSS-made FusionFiber wheelsets.

Forge+Bond states that the CR Series was built around the belief that "riders deserve exceptional performance and comfort on every ride, regardless of the surface conditions."

In our testing of Chris King's and Forge+Bond's FusionFiber gravel wheels, comfort was indeed a standout ride characteric of these FusionFiber products, but can this compliance go hand-in–hand with the stiffness and responsiveness desired for road riding?

In its marketing copy, Forge+Bond notably positions these wheels as designed for "everyday encounters" rather than racing yet promises "unmatched responsiveness and power transfer without sacrificing a smooth, fatigue-reducing ride."

"We may have started our company around our line of stellar MTB products, but as cyclists, we know whether you're riding dirt or tarmac, you want the best of both worlds: performance and comfort," says Brett Stahl, VP of Marketing at FORGE+BOND. "The CR Series achieves this perfect balance through the use of our patented FusionFiber material, allowing riders to

confidently push themselves over real road conditions—you know, everything from the

smoothest to the 'Crappiest Roads.'"

Both CR models were made using the FusionFiber technology, feature a tubeless-ready hookless rim, and come in three different hub options.

The first two members of Forge+Bond's road family are: