HISTORY AND TECH OF TIME BICYCLES
A Brief History of Time
Forget cosmology – founded in 1987 by Roland Cattin, Time’s journey started with introducing their pedal system, famously ridden to 11 Tour de France victories by the likes of Greg LeMond and Miguel Indurain. Time remained a prominent part of the pro peloton for years, first with their carbon forks before eventually developing their own framesets. Widely regarded as some of the best-crafted frames on the market, Time’s frames have an impressive palmares with various world, Olympic and monument classics victories courtesy of Paolo Bettini and Tom Boonen.
Despite the bike industry's shift towards outsourcing manufacturing to the Far East, Time has focused on their European in-house production to maximise quality, precision and innovation. Their ability to keep innovating while building some of the most finely-tuned frames out there all these years later is a testament to their expertise and experience. With some seriously cool carbon tech to their name, let’s take a closer look!
The Tech
Time has been perfecting their carbon craft for the last 30 years, and it shows. Their unique processes and in-house manufacturing have allowed them to finely tune their framesets to perform at the highest level while delivering unrivalled ride quality.
Braided Carbon Structure (BCS)
When we say in-house, we mean in-house. Every inch of carbon fibre that you find on their framesets is woven in their own factory using their unique carbon braiding machine to create Braided Carbon Structures. What does this mean? Rather than traditional carbon sheet layup techniques, Time weaves the fibres into bi-directional ‘socks’ made up of 16 filaments, with each tube section being made up of continuous fibres. This technique also allows for one weave to utilise multiple complex materials, whether it’s high-modulus carbon, high-strength carbon, Kevlar, or even Dyneema, and be tuned to serve a specific purpose.
This might sound complicated – and it is – but the result of this is high structural integrity, unrivalled precision and build quality, and finely tuned performance.
Find out more about BCS here.
Find out more about Time’s Dyneema tech here.
Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM)
Typically found in the aerospace and high-end car industries, Resin Transfer Moulding greatly reduces the potential for defects and voids in the carbon structure, but due to the technical and labour-intensive nature of the process is something that is very rarely seen in bicycle manufacturing. This works by injecting resin between layers at high pressure, pushing out air pockets and voids. Combined with Time’s precise moulds, this allows them to consistently operate at extremely high tolerances for a perfectly finished product.
Find out more about RTM here.
