Hoop Dreams
Cyclist goes behind the scenes at Enve, and finds a manufacturer that’s turning the American dream into reality
In the American Midwest, Enve produces some of the most covetable wheels in the world. Cyclist rides into town to uncover its secrets
This is real America. The streets are lined with pick-up trucks, the skyline is obscured by the shadow of the vast Rockies, and last night I was ID’D while ordering a beer with dinner. We’re in Ogden, Utah, on the fringes of the Great Salt Lake, 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, Mormon capital of the world.
We arrive at an anonymous industrial block in the north of town. A discreet sign says, ‘ENVE Composites – 690 West 1100 South’ and I’m convinced I’ve wasted a transatlantic trip. I was hoping for a hi-tech wheel-building wonderland, maybe a tower block made of pure carbon, but this looks like local council offices. As it turns out, looks can be deceiving.
Enve has long since been a desirable wheel brand, with its deep section carbon wheels commonly decorating the most exclusive of bike builds. American custom builders such as Parlee, Independent Fabrication and Alchemy all use Enve carbon components and often build their frames using Enve carbon tubing. In what seems to be an American tradition, Enve goes to great lengths to keep production in the US, so it can oversee every step of the process, from conception to road testing. But despite its pivotal position in the US cycling industry, Enve is a relatively new kid on the block.
From the Edge
Enve was not always Enve, but rather it began life as Edge Composites. The company was born out
of a schism in the American wheel industry. Jason Schiers parted ways with Reynolds Wheels, turning his back on the bike industry to create Edge composites and, in theory, to make carbon fibre automotive parts. Next, cousins and future Enve co-owners Brett and Taylor Satterthwaite came into the picture, having made a name developing dune buggies, and invested capital into the business with a view to making high-end bike components.
‘We started it – Jason Schiers, Taylor and I,’ says co-owner Brett Satterthwaite. ‘Originally Taylor and I went in as the funding partners and didn’t have a lot of involvement for the first year or so. But it was such an exciting project that we just became more and more involved. Now we both have offices in the R&D department.’
Early on, Edge found a niche with wheels, but ran into trouble only a few years into the business. ‘We changed our name in 2010,’ explains Sarah Lehman, CEO and the business brains behind the brand. ‘We didn’t know when we founded the company as Edge that someone else actually owned the name Edge in Europe, so we got a “cease and desist” in 2009, and we changed our name to Enve. Within a matter of eight weeks from Eurobike we rebranded everything.’ And so it was that Enve was born.
With a combination of engineering knowledge from the Satterthwaite cousins and cycling knowhow from Shiers, Enve ploughed ahead with several technological innovations, and took out a number of patents for wheel design – two of which are particulaly notable. The first (US patent number 8313155 B2, if you’re interested) covered the moulded-in spoke holes specific to Enve, which means the carbon is weaved around holes in the rim, rather than drilling through fully-formed carbon pieces.
The second and more recent patent is for the wide, rounded wheel shape developed by British aerodynamicist Simon Smart in conjunction with the manufacturer, a demonstration of Enve’s increasing focus on aerodynamics (see boxout on p136).
When it comes to carbon fibre construction, most bike brands have shifted production to Taiwan, both for the low labour costs and the technological expertise, but Enve’s decision to keep the bulk of production in the USA is not merely about patriotism – Ogden is not without its own backdrop of engineering and manufacturing innovation.
Neighbouring Salt Lake City is a global hub of carbon fibre design, with Hexcel and Boeing based there. Satterthwaite explains the geographic advantages: ‘Salt Lake City is strong in carbon. Some of the tech schools around here now have carbon fibre elements within the course. It’s also important for recruiting.’
Lehman also credits the industrious nature of Ogden for Enve’s success, partly because of the technological knowledge on hand but also the famous work ethic of the Utah population. ‘The culture of Utah is hard working, it’s very diverse and it’s very focused on science and technology,’ says Lehman. Then, of course, there’s the Mormon connection.
‘Utah is predominantly Mormon,’ says Lehman. The state officially boasts a Mormon population of more than 50%, ‘and we have a large percentage of Mormon employees.
‘Utah is predominantly Mormon – more than 50% of the population. It’s very wholesome. People show up ready to work in the morning’
It’s very wholesome. People show up ready to work in the morning,’ she adds.
Work starts at Enve at 5am, before sunrise even at the height of summer. It’s no wonder, as behind Enve’s blackened screen doors, there’s plenty of work to be done.
The factory floor
Enve makes its tubes and wheels in Utah. Much of the component manufacturing, including Enve forks, has been outsourced to the Far East, but the US facility still takes care of the design, development, production and testing of all of Enve’s flagship mountain bike and road wheels. And it all begins with sheets of floppy fabric.
The first stage of the process takes place in the cutting room. Strips of carbon fibre material, pre-impregnated with resin (pre-preg), are cut to the exact sizes needed for the finished component. ‘All the materials that are put into the “kits” for one wheel are weighed before and after,’ says Satterthwaite. ‘There
are several quality-control steps along the way, and everything is traceable if there is a failure.’
Following this, the material can take several different journeys – sometimes it becomes a wheel, sometimes a carbon tube. While tubing was once the lifeblood of Enve’s operation, it’s now a minority part of the business.
‘Below 5% of the business is tubing, compared to wheels. But it remains important to our relationship with custom builders that we can provide them with tubes,’ says Joe Stannish, director of manufacturing, who’s currently walking us through the factory. Tubing is a highly streamlined process here, where Enve can mandrel-wrap tubes to incredible accuracy – useful for custom builders trying to build a seat tube to an exact seatpost diameter.
It’s not that Enve doesn’t make much tubing, but rather that the quantity of wheels that it produces is vast by comparison. The company currently turns out 200 rims per day, working in two shifts to keep production active most of the time – a necessary measure given the need to constantly cook and cure carbon wheels and tubes throughout the production process. The increase in production quantities has been significant for Enve, and it has expanded beyond expectation, and indeed the capacity of its facility.
‘This used to be our entire building,’ Lehman explains as we walk through the humble shipping department of the company. ‘Everything was in this space, and I think it’s about 5,000 square feet. We had shipping, production, R&D, everything in this small little space – now we’ve got a total square footage of 33,000. But because of the quick expansion it’s very scattered, it makes no sense at all!’
While Enve is proud of its homegrown carbon production, much of the factory in Ogden remains strictly behind closed doors. The real meat of the production, the lay-up and curing process is all kept tightly under wraps, and these are the doors through which we are not allowed.
‘Composites are not intuitive. If engineers can’t get their hands dirty, they can’t understand how to make the best product’
Once the material strips are separated, they are laid into a mould in a specific orientation. As all of the carbon is unidirectional (woven in one direction) the layup is crucial as any mistakes mean not only that the wheels would perform badly, but they could fall apart.
‘We mould in our spoke holes,’ Lehman adds. ‘Carbon is like string and glue – instead of drilling the hole where you want the most strength, the holes are actually moulded in during the process, and so you get a higher strength where you really want it.’ The carbon is wrapped around an inflatable bladder that is completely removed once the process is finished, a marginal weight saving measure. The bladder provides the framework for the shape of the rim, around which the spoke holes must then be sculpted. That is then put in a mould to be heated and then cured so that the resin spreads through the carbon fibre, setting and cementing it in place. What goes into the mould looks like an unfinished frilly bridesmaid’s dress, while what comes out is a neat and shiny piece of sparkling carbon fibre.
From there, the wheel is nearly complete, save for bits of resin that protrude at points along the rim and need to be trimmed. Satterthwaite explains, ‘As we cure the carbon fibre, the resin will flow and be pushed out at the seams of the preforms, and there is always resin that ends up on the outside of the wheel.’
After this, the final stages of the wheel production are the application of decals, which is all done in-house, and the building of the wheel, which can be done with Enve’s wheelbuilding machine or by foreign distributors themselves. ‘We keep our hub inventory under lock and key,’ explains Stannish, revealing an enormous cabinet filled with DT Swiss hubs.
The proximity between engineering, design and manufacturing is one of the reasons for the high price of the finished product, but Enve argues that this is one of the greatest strengths of the company. ‘Composites are not an intuitive material,’ says Stannish. ‘If the engineers can’t go out and get their hands dirty, they truly don’t understand how to make the best product. So much of making a top carbon product is understanding the process that will give you different characteristics, whether its strength, durability or weight.’
One characteristic that increasingly separates the very best wheels from the rest is braking performance. So much so that Enve developed its own technology and testing fixtures in order to improve braking performance. ‘Did you see the brake track test machine?’ asks Satterthwaite. ‘We were having heat issues from braking and we needed a way to determine if we were making improvements. So given my background in electronics, I developed a test fixture that could actually measure the power going into the wheel so we could make improvements.’
While many brands use radical, visible treatments for the brake track, Enve’s approach is more subtle, with a focus on resin systems to dissipate heat along with complete linear consistency. ‘We have two or three different tools [metal moulds] that can cause issues with braking if the tolerance goes out of line, so inspection of the tools is crucial,’ says Satterthwaite. ‘I think earlier on we ran tools a little longer and we had width variation and we traced it back to the tools, so now we replace them more often.’
The Smart thing
As well as high strength, stiffness and low weights, an increasingly important factor that splits the top wheels from the mass market products is their performance against the wind. The deep section trend has swept the road market from its origins in the TT scene for two reasons – looking faster and actually moving faster. With Enve’s wide range of deep section wheels, aerodynamics has been central to the design.
While Enve’s manufacturing and design process resides in Utah, aerodynamics is one area where the work is outsourced to the far-flung corners of the globe. That is, the UK. Aerodynamicist Simon Smart has been a longstanding consultant to Enve, and the brand’s
‘We have two or three tools that can cause issues with braking if the tolerance goes out of line, so inspection of the tools is crucial’
top echelon of wheels bears his name in recognition of the partnership. The Smart Enve System (SES) is the consequence of Smart’s wind-tunnel analysis of the wheels, and has been the subject of Enve’s most recent patent.
‘I came on board as we were bringing Simon into the Enve partnership, in late 2010, and we launched the first Smart Enve wheel in 2011,’ says Lehman. ‘I think to be a player in the world market you have to have aerodynamics as part of your offering.’ But Lehman stresses that it’s not simply a case of outsourcing the aerodynamics side of the business: ‘I wouldn’t say outsource, because it’s more of a partnership. Simon is just as much an employee of the company as I am. It’s not as if we create the wheel and he adds aerodynamics to it – it’s in tandem the whole way through the process.’
Smart, who operates out of the MercedesAMD Petronas F1 wind-tunnel in Brackley, Northamptonshire, has been influential in the design of Enve’s wheels and components in recent years. Importantly, though, it’s not just been a matter of speed. ‘Our wheels are focused on aerodynamics but also on stability,’ says Stannish. ‘So if you look at our SES line, it’s not just about being the fastest, it’s about being the fastest and most stable wheel. If you take a set of
‘Our wheels are focused on aerodynamics but also on stability. Our SES line is not just about being the fastest wheel’
8.9s and ride them on a windy day, I think you’ll have more control over your bike than with any other deep section wheel that’s out there today.’
Enve has certainly progressed rapidly since its early days as a dune buggy brand venturing into bicycles. It seems to prove that in an industry where designing in one place and manufacturing in another is commonplace, there is still merit to keeping a watchful eye over every stage of the production process. The brand’s appeal to its customers goes much deeper than simply an appetite for homegrown, handbuilt charm, and with this year seeing Enve’s first Pro Tour appearance, as wheel provider for Team MTNQhubeka, it seems the Enve approach is working.
Peter Stuart is staff writer for Cyclist and hopes to one day own a set of Enve 8.9s (as soon as he learns to live without food or shelter)