Carbon fiber shortage looms Bike prices likely to rise as aerospace demand increases for composites
A few years ago a downturn in US defence spending led to a glut of high-end bike components as former defence contractors turned their CNC machines to making parts for bikes instead of fighter planes. Now it looks like the opposite is about to happen as demand for carbon fiber increases in the aerospace industry.
Carlton Reid of UK bike trade website bikebiz.co.uk got this rather alarming news from Dr. Kuan Chun Weng, who runs Composite Technology Corporation of Taiwan (C-Tech), the company that makes carbon fiber frames for Giant and is about to start making them for Colnago.
Weng is very familiar with the aerospace industry’s need for advanced composites: in a former life, his PhD in composites technology was put to work in Taiwan’s missile-making programme, part of the delicate military balance that exists between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.
“Missiles are easy to make from composites. They’re long, straight tubes,” said Dr. Weng. They’re also built to self-destruct and have not been designed to ascend and descend Alpine cols piloted by pro bike riders.
Moving from missiles to bicycles was therefore quite a career change for Dr. Weng, and a more taxing one. The stresses and strains a pro rider puts into a road frame means the job the carbon fibre is given to do is a multi-tasking one. Sprinters want lateral stiffness, col climbers torsional stiffness.
C-Tech was originally part of Giant, but while the parent company still owns 78 percent, it has operated independently since 2000 Dr. Weng came on board. It has 200 employees, with 22 in its research and development department in Taipei.
Ninety percent of C-Tech’s production is for Giant, though the first production run of Colnago’s non-Italian mid-range carbon frames is planned for late July or early August.
However, there’s a global shortage of carbon fibre, with composites factories all over the world having to cope with rationing of the fibres that go into making carbon fibre. This is due to the expansion of the Chinese economy, the building of the Airbus A380 and Boeing’s 7E7 Dreamliner, top-secret US air force projects, and the proliferation of windfarms across Europe. Every windfarm blade of 50m or more is made of carbon fibre. Shorter blades can make do with cheaper, heavier glass fibre.
Instead of some pauper industries - such as the bike industry - being denied access to the raw materials, the main Japanese suppliers of the specialist polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibres have restricted supply across the board.
According to Toray Industries of Japan, the demand for PAN-based carbon fibre for 2004 was estimated to be about 22,000 tons and the demand is forecast to grow at an annual rate of more than 10 percent in the future and is expected to exceed 30 000 tons in 2007.
In a statement issued in January, Mitsubishi Rayon of Tokyo, another of the world’s leading suppliers of carbon fibres, said:
In January of this year, Mitsubishi Rayon of Tokyo, another of the world’s leading suppliers of carbon fibres, issued a statement urging carbon fiber manufacturers to “establish their production systems to ensure future stable supply” in the face of increasing demand.
According to Dr Weng this ‘future stable supply’ did not materialise and that from April this year, shortages started to bite. He believes the rationing will last through to June and perhaps beyond.
Price rises inevitably follow any materials shortages and Dr Weng believes carbon fibre bicycle frames (and tennis rackets, golf shafts, fishing rods and other carbon fibre products) will start to cost more later this year as suppliers pass on some of the extra costs to consumers.
Dr Weng said the price hike will last for up to two years, limiting the mass market potential for carbon fibre products in the bicycle industry.
The first consequences of the forthcoming price hike can already be seen, claimed Dr Weng. He said his R&D team have come across Asian bicycle components made from cheaper glass fibre, ‘wrapped’ in carbon fibre. Last year’s trend was for carbon fibre sheathing over aluminium cores, a shady practice but one that’s easily proved to be taking place (so long as you can bear cutting into your ‘carbon’ handlebars, that is). However, glass fibre cores can be dyed to look indistinguishable from the carbon fibre outers and it needs specialist testing to spot the duds.
Dr Weng said consumers should be made aware that carbon fibre bikes will not be coming down in price any time soon and that cheap-as-chips carbon parts and frames may not be all they seem.