Bastion Is Now Making Forks And Cockpits From 3D-printed Titanium And Carbon – CyclingTips

Best known for its customized 3D-printed titanium lug and carbon tube frames, Bastion Cycles is now using that know-how to supply an integrated, matching and wholly made-in-house disc street fork, titanium forging stem, and bar.

During a factory tour (extra on that soon) the day earlier than the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia, CyclingTips sat down with Bastion co-founder and lead engineer James Woolcock to find out about this new product segment for the Melbourne-primarily based boutique producer.

Why make a fork and cockpit?

Bastion has been making frames with 3D-printed titanium lugs and carbon tubes since 2015, and till now had relied on the likes of Enve and THM for provide of forks and cockpits. Bastion intends to maintain providing its bikes with these off-the-shelf merchandise for customers who want exposed cabling or have a selected bar/stem they love, but there was additionally room for enchancment – by making a entrance end that employs the same customisable and lattice-structured titanium lug concept as its bespoke framesets.

“From a functionality perspective we had lots of shoppers asking about integrated cables. [This has] received completely hidden built-in cables,” stated Woolcock of the brand new fork, bar, and stem mixture that’s compatible with the company’s current disc road bikes. “We get the good thing about doing custom geometry. Not being beholden to buy in a fork that then limits us in fork rake choice. By doing our personal fork in-house, we will specify precisely what fork rake we wish.”

Adding to that, Bastion has made some significant investments in its potential to manufacture in-home and control the process. They have not one, titanium tube however two 3D titanium printers, and new services to produce carbon components themselves that goes past the previous filament-wound merchandise, too. “Literally titanium powder and uncooked carbon fibre come within the entrance door, and the fork and cockpit exit,” Woolcock stated. With such an investment it just is smart that Bastion would grow its product offering and complete the unique look of its frames.

The fork and cockpit was a mission Bastion began two years in the past, but some compelled time away from manufacturing (virtually 100 days) during final year’s intensive coronavirus lockdowns in Melbourne gave the crew loads of time to give attention to the development. Test tools was built. The idea quickly got here to reality. There’s a reason why so few makers offer their very own forks. That’s because dangerous things occur when things go wrong. “It’s not something we take frivolously,” Woolcock mentioned. “Making a bar, stem, and fork is not any joke in terms of the necessities. We’ve executed lots of testing, and we’ve received people like Raoul Luescher of Luescher Teknik concerned in the quality control (QC) process in the carbon fibre parts of our fork. He’s been concerned throughout the research and development course of. Raoul’s been scanning elements as we go, and can continue scanning as part of our production QC.”

A look on the fork tech

Bastion’s new fork is made up of a lot of pieces. The steerer tube and fork blades are carbon fibre, whereas the 3D-printed titanium crown and dropouts tie all of it collectively. If you enjoyed this post and you would such as to receive even more information concerning titanium tube (www.jigsawplanet.com) kindly browse through our own web site. The fork affords a remarkably asymmetrical design with the stiffness. Ride high quality benchmarked off an Enve fork. And it’s worth noting that the carbon lay-up and meant experience quality won’t change from one buyer order to the following; the one piece that changes is the crown that allows for a customised fork rake of anyplace between forty and 55 mm.

This new fork and bar setup follows the same idea to a variety of different built-in and hidden-cable techniques. It’s disc-particular and titanium tube can solely work with electronic drivetrains (Bastion frames are electronic-solely anyway). It presents room for a 32 mm tyre. It uses a D-shaped steerer tube that gives room for the brake hoses to run via the top headset bearing. And it is a bit of bit heavier. However there are distinctive. Interesting variations here.

“A lot of other choices available on the market have gone to an even bigger higher bearing which we really feel has compromised the visible weight of the bike,” stated Woolcock. Bastion’s system makes use of the identical smaller 1 1/8″ higher bearing as utilized in its current frames.

“We’ve needed to go to a type of a D-shaped steerer tube to get the cables in, but the front face of our steerer is just not fully flat and does have some curvature which provides more buckling stiffness. Then the most important compromise is that at the stem interface there’s a danger of crushing the tube, and so for our system now we have a bonded-in 3D-titanium-printed (compression) plug which means the steerer is totally supported across that clamped joint.”

Bonded-in compression plugs and steerer reinforcements are nothing new, but ease of shopper setup and fork trimming accessibility have seen removable plugs develop into the business norm. “We can get away with this as an answer due to the bespoke nature of our bikes,” Woolcock said. “We know with each bike that goes out what the effective stack and handlebar attain needs to be, we are able to trim the steerer tube to the designed length and bond in a compression plug. We’ve left 10 mm of adjustability within the compression plug, so you can nonetheless trim it to some extent.”

There are further safety elements too. For instance, the custom headset compression ring is designed to assist with steerer assist, whereas that D-formed steerer options a flare at the bottom that utterly captures the steerer within the titanium crown for a mechanical match along with the chemical bond.

I weighed a pre-manufacturing fork at 526 g with an uncut steerer. For comparison, an Enve Disc Road fork is 440 g. “This isn’t a product to push down to a safety factor of one [i.e. a fork should be capable to withstand significantly more load than its meant use – ed.]. It’s in the 10s of grams heavier than an Enve fork, however that’s completely positive.”

Handlebar and stem

The handlebar and stem went by way of an equal amount of design, testing and refinement, and it happened alongside a continuing mission for creating cockpit components for the Australian national cycling team.

This handlebar and stem additionally employs a mix of carbon fibre and 3D-printed titanium items. “The crossbar is carbon,” Woolcock stated. “It embodies our ethos that carbon is excellent at straight lines and easy shapes and that’s where we use it.” Meanwhile titanium is used for the whole stem and the whole curved portion of the handlebar drops. “The be part of is previous the shift lever,” Woolcock added. “The shift lever is clamping over a titanium portion. Given a number of the latest failures I really feel fairly good about that.”

The handlebar and stem are bonded as one piece and so lack any user adjustability, nevertheless Bastion has full control over the specified stem size and bar width. Stem might be printed in something from 80-130 mm lengths, while the bar width is just controlled by the size of the carbon crossbar previous to bonding. For now the drops are only being produced in a consistent compact shape, but there’s scope to tailor this depending on market demand.

The usage of 3D-printed titanium components wherever there is a bend has also given Bastion the opportunity to create particular cable paths that ought to assist with a neater setup and hopefully scale back the agony if a headset bearing ever needs changing. “Nothing goes to exchange the convenience of external cables where you possibly can see where they’re, but we’ve executed some issues internally – we call them wormholes,” defined Woolcock of the intricate detailing you can’t see. Basically there are catch cones. Shapes within the components that drive the cables on a specific path. “So for example, beneath the stem there are two entry ports,” Woolcock said. “One port will take you to the correct, the opposite port will take you to the left. So no matter cable goes into that proper one will probably be despatched to the suitable lever.”

I wasn’t in a position to weigh the handlebar and stem, but Bastion claims a determine of 440 g.

Will we see it on other bikes?

For now, Bastion is barely providing its new fork, handlebar, and stem on its own street bikes because it fulfils pre-current orders. If you’re ordering a Bastion at present then you possibly can expect to pay a surcharge of AU$1,500 (approx US$1,150) for this integrated setup over the value of an Enve bar/stem/fork combo.

Of course, there’s scope to adapt this product to Bastion’s Crossroad gravel bike and use the technology in other component areas, too.

As for opening up the product to other builders, it’s a question I posed to Bastion. “It’s on the matrix,” Woolcock mentioned. “Whether or not other builders will likely be thinking about putting it on their bike stays to be seen. It is quite distinctly Bastion in its aesthetic. The limit will likely be our production capacity.