Lighter, stronger, made in America and 100% recyclable. The new Revel wheels just flipped the script. The same bike nerds who brought you Revel Bikes are proud to present Revel Wheels. These rims are made from the brand new Fusion-FiberTM technology developed and manufactured in an aerospace facility in southern Utah. There’s no environmentally harmful or brittle epoxy in this carbon- it is a highly engineered, high performance composite polymer that makes for a significantly more durable, lighter, and better riding wheel with a nice damped feel.
Fusion-FiberTM is the name of this technology, which encompasses the material and the process. And it’s unlike any composite material the bicycle world has ever seen. Revel partnered with some friends who developed this material in one of the world’s leading aerospace manufacturing facilities in America to come out with the first product made from it- the RW30 rim.
At a basic level, the crew at CSS removed all epoxy from standard pre-preg carbon and replaced it with advanced polymers- think nylon, but on a whole new level. The raw material is a blend of unidirectional long fiber German and Japanese carbon impregnated with this polymer. In its raw form, it is completely stable, has an unlimited shelf life, doesn’t need to be stored in a refrigerated room like standard epoxy pre-preg carbon, and all of this stable and consistent production.
Not only is the raw material innovative, the manufacturing process is where things get really crazy. The rims are laid-up and cross-plied robotically, leaving no space for human error or inconsistencies. The rims are then flash welded together, with an exponentially faster cure time than current rim technology. Cure times go from around 45 minutes for a standard thermoset carbon rim to 20 seconds with this system, in a completely controlled environment so every rim comes out the same, every time. When the rim pops out of the mold, there is no epoxy resin to be scraped or sanded and it needs no clear coating. These two steps expose most harmful chemicals to the worker and the environment. Fusion-FiberTM has multiple patents pending and is stronger and has much better impact resistance per gram than standard carbon fiber. Where epoxy is brittle and can fracture, nylon is flexible and makes for a quiet, damped ride feel, and better impact resistant rim.
Lifetime Warranty
Revel rims are backed by a lifetime warranty and crash replacement policy. If a Revel rim should happen to break, they want to get you back riding your bike riding ASAP. Revel want that rim back so they can recycle it into another bike part.
If you do break your rim, we’ll send you a loaner set of wheels at no charge to use while Revel repair or replace your wheel. They will cover shipping both ways. The bottom line is that in the mountain bike world, a lot of us have come to accept a pretty high failure rate for high end carbon wheels. Revel engineered these rims to be superior in strength to all other carbon rims on the market, but if you run low tire pressures, smack a sharp rock and luck isn’t on your side, a rim crack can still happen. The likelihood of our Fusion-FiberTM to contain a failure in a small area on the rim and not permeate a larger crack is high, and you have a better chance of keeping your tire on the rim and inflated if something does go wrong.
Revel have a pretty big pile of rims from our development process that we have already recycled and turned into parts. Their partners are dedicated to perfecting this method and the sky is the limit to what we can make. If they get a rim back that needs to be recycled, they remove the vinyl decals and drop the rim into a chipper and chop it up into small blocks about 1” square. Those chips are then melted down into a block of material that can be turned into another part.
Specifications:
Rims: Revel RW30 27.5″
Hole Count: 28 or 32
Accessories: Rim tape and valve stems installed, Stans No Tubes Single Shots x2
Rim Weight: 440g
