PartingtonCC R-Series Wheels

To design the lightest, stiffest tension spoke cycle wheels for high-performance road bicycles whilst continuing to exceed international safety and UCI standards. Tension spoke wheels were invented by aeronautical engineer George Cayley in 1808 and have evolved over more than two centuries to very weight efficient designs. No better is this demonstrated than in the sport of cycling where the use of advanced materials such as carbon fibre has enabled a many-fold reduction in weight. Consumer driven demand for performance cycle is relentless, and fundamentally new thinking was required to evolve past the current best in class.

All design follows a process flow, but the early establishment of some unwavering principles underpin the DNA at Partington, and that is; design for carbon fibre. Good ideas happen easily, executing them is the difficult part. With composites manufacturing creating the material happens concurrently while creating the part. There are then, few more relevant scenarios where the “how are we going to make this” becomes the most important design consideration; therefore, most of our effort goes into the manufacturing solution (the enabling processes). Carbon fibre design principles >> sympathetic design >> enabling processes

In a saturated market first pier, commentary suggested the product has the capability to “de-throne” the globally regarded leader. Further, very positive former-professional cyclist appraisals coupled with 100% elated global customer feedback indicated strong market reception. First servicing the ultra-high-end market, but with transferable technologies to the premium sector, conservative modelling indicates a collective market opportunity approaching $30M/annum (AUD), >90% of which will be export. All composite manufacturing is wholly and exclusively made in Australia. With an ever-increasing trend towards low-emission transport and recreational sporting pursuits such as cycling, there are ever growing prosects in this social and market space.

Attention to detail and “how can this be done better” drives differences in what we see as acceptable solutions. Original thinking, and not wearing the constraints of conventional manufacturing practices leads to very tailored solutions. This methodology is only executable through our willingness to design, develop and manufacture own tooling and processing solutions – all in house. Strong material science background has produced innovative multi-material and multi-process philosophies that have led to novel and enabling design architectures. Our measured attributes prove us to have already succeeded here with the highest stiffness to weight of any disc- brake specific wheelset in the world. Structurally efficient design and an up-front awareness of manufacturing process also leads to resource conscious solutions. Very minimal material is used or wasted during the manufacturing process. Further, simplification of the ‘human component’ of manufacture improves quality and reduces labour content, enabling exceptionally high-quality product to be manufactured and distributed to service a competitive global market.