3D printing a Tour De France winner

As a composites and design engineering expert, I have always been a dyed-in-the-wool Carbon Fibre advocate. I’ve been designing and building competitive bicycles for some of the speediest athletes on Earth since the 90s and, until recently, have always relied on carbon fibre for its versatility, lightness and strength. And don’t get me wrong, Olympic and Tour de France champions will attest to its benefits when it comes to producing medal-winning bicycles.

Previously, my team at Metron and I kept a close eye on additive manufacturing technology. We used it occasionally for printing prototypes for aerodynamics testing, but it was never central to our design process. The materials were fairly limited when it came to building bicycle frames and parts and the cost and reliability couldn’t compete with CF for what we needed.

That is, until more recently, when additive manufacturing technology really upped its game when it came to metals. Printing full, complex, robust end-use parts in Titanium moved from the realms of fantasy and hype to reality, so when it came to designing handlebars for Chris Froome’s Tour de France-winning bicycle, we decided the time had come to choose AM over CF. And we haven’t looked back.