The cycling industry is arguably struggling to deliver products made from recycled materials that offer a proven performance advantage as well as an environmental benefit, but innovative British brand Parcours is claiming to have done exactly that with its new Strade GT wheelset.
Working with cleantech startup Lineat and the sports engineering department at Nottingham Trent University, Parcours developed a patented technology called VibraCORE which integrates Lineat's AFFT reclaimed aligned carbon fibre material directly into the spoke bed of the rim, reducing vibration at a structural level.
The adoption of wider tyres and lower pressures in the last decade has demonstrated that if vibration transmitted through the wheel system can be reduced, riders stay fresher for longer, and ultimately ride faster and further.
But the Strade GT takes this a step further. Parcours’ testing showed that VibraCORE provides a reduction in vibrational energy equivalent to lowering tyre pressure by around 10-15psi, without the associated trade-offs in rolling efficiency or handling precision. Aggregated across all testing, according to Parcours – and illustrated in its 32-page white paper – the data showed that rims using VibraCORE reduced vibration energy by between 19-23% compared to an equivalent rim without the technology. This, it says, allows the wheelset to deliver a calmer and more controlled ride over long distances, while maintaining the stiffness, responsiveness and aerodynamic performance expected of a high-performance wheelset – without compromising weight, stiffness or durability.
VibraCORE might be the Strade GT’s USP, but behind it is a high-end wheelset that weighs a very competitive 1,130 grams, is laced with Alpina carbon spokes and runs on Parcours’ CS hub with a titanium freehub body and a 60-tooth ratchet drive.
Like the original Parcours Strade, the Strade GT has differential rim profiles for improved crosswind performance: the front is wider and shallower with a 49.2mm depth and a 32.5mm external width, while the rear is more V-profiled with a 54.0mm depth and 30.5mm external width. The internal rim width is 1mm wider than before at 23.5mm – the rim is aerodynamically optimised for a 30mm tyre though still compatible with a 28c tyre under ETRTO guidelines. Parcours is continuing to use hooked rather than hookless tyre retention for its road wheels.
Aerodynamic validation was again done at the A2 wind tunnel in North Carolina, concluding that the Strade GT outperforms the original Strade by 3.2W at 48kph. Nottingham Trent University also had a key role in the earlier wheelset, which was launched in 2020. At that time, Tate worked with Dr Steve Faulkner and the sports engineering department to analyse real-time wind speed and direction using marine anemometers fitted to the front and rear axles, and the resulting differential profiles were radical at that time.
For the Strade GT, Faulkner and his department worked on vibration analysis. Multi-axis vibration sensors were mounted at the stem and the rear of the top tube and testing was carried out across multiple riders and surfaces in a real-world environment. According to Parcours, the results were processed using frequency-domain analysis, which involves transforming the signal into its frequency components, while Power Spectral Density (PSD) was used to visualise distribution. PSD shows how much energy is present at each frequency, making it possible to identify which parts of the signal contribute most to overall vibration. To quantify the overall magnitude of vibration, RMS (root mean square) energy was used as the primary metric. This, according to the white paper, provides a measure of the average energy within the signal over time, rather than focusing on isolated peaks.
Although the use of the recycled carbon fibre is headline-worthy – because virtually everything about carbon fibre production has up to now been notoriously damaging to the environment – Parcours founder Dov Tate stresses that for now sustainability is a secondary benefit. The amount of recycled fibres in the overall rim is 10-12 per cent, making up just the layer at the spoke bed and the surface of the sidewalls for a unique ‘chopped fibre’ aesthetic. The rest is still out of necessity made from virgin, unidirectional carbon fibre, which supplies the stiffness-to-weight ratio required.
However, Tate says that Parcours is developing a full cyclical pathway for its rims, allowing carbon recovered from legacy Parcours wheels, including those returned through its crash replacement programme, to be reprocessed and reused within the VibraCORE component of new Parcours wheels.
So Parcours is clearly keen not to make big sustainability claims for the Strade GT. The recycled material makes up a relatively small percentage of the final product even though, as he explains, the original objective was to look for sustainable alternatives to virgin carbon fibre that would not otherwise compromise performance or price. Once prototype testing was under way with the recycled materials, the vibration-damping properties warranted further investigation and VibraCORE was the end result.
What gives the recycled material these properties? As Parcours’ white paper explains, Lineat’s AFFT (Aligned Formable Fibre Technology) enables high performance re-use of carbon fibre by taking reclaimed chopped fibres with the resin removed and reprocessing them into a highly aligned fibre tape. The short carbon fibres are realigned and combined with resin to form a new composite material. This new material (AFFT) retains a proportion of the original material properties but crucially introduces a different structural behaviour. Traditional carbon fibre rim construction relies on continuous fibres aligned to manage tensile loads efficiently. This is highly effective for stiffness and strength but less effective in influencing how vibrational energy is transmitted through the structure. By contrast, aligned short-fibre material introduces a different interaction: rather than acting purely as a load-bearing element, the material influences how energy is transferred between layers, according to the white paper. The effect is not defined by the material in isolation, but by how it interacts with the surrounding continuous fibre structure. Tate says that the “secret sauce” of VibraCORE is exactly how the short fibres are co-moulded with the continuous ones within the layup.
First ride
I was invited to Parcours’ Surrey Hills HQ to test the Strade GT wheels. Tate asked me to bring my own bike, he would swap in the Strade GTs and we would ride a mix of road surfaces including the location where the vibration testing was carried out. The idea was that I could compare the ride quality with the Parcours wheels against the wheels that I’d been riding up to then.
I’m currently on the new Felt Nexar which, in the top build, comes with Vision Metron 45 RS wheels. These weigh 1,290g, have carbon spokes, a shallower rim depth than the Strade GT and an internal rim width of 23mm compared to the Strade GT’s 23mm. They’re fitted with 28mm Continental Grand Prix 5000 S TR (they’re optimised for 28mm and above).
We stuck with the GP 5000 S TR but because the Strade GTs were optimised for 30mm, we used the slightly wider tyre – so I can’t say we were 100 per cent comparing like with like.
The pressures put into the Strade GT for the test ride were 64psi front and 66psi rear – Tate explained this was standard testing pressure for 30mm tyres with the GT rims, and recommended experimenting with +/- 5-8 psi depending on road surface.
I was already impressed with the Vision wheels – I rode a hilly time trial on them and was impressed with the low weight, stiffness and responsiveness. They are high-end, pro-level wheels. I have to say I was slightly worried I might not be able to notice a difference when I rode the Parcours Strade GT – and also might not be able to comment fairly since the tyres were wider – but the smoothness was too obvious to ignore.
Out of Parcours’ gateway we headed out onto a winding, potholed farm track between fields that Tate told me had been used for the original real-world testing. It was the reduction in buzz that was immediately noticeable. As he explained, bigger hits couldn’t be absorbed solely by a layer of recycled carbon alone, but what we all call “road buzz” was dramatically reduced.
When we reached the main road and picked up speed on rough chipseal, the difference was even more pronounced. I commented to Tate that usually that resonance of carbon tubes and rims tends to disappear on rougher roads beneath the continuous vibration, but the satisfying swooshing sound was clearly still there. If I hadn’t known, I would have said I was riding on dual carriageway-style asphalt.
Early verdict
My first ride impressions can’t be taken as anything more than subjective, and the power of suggestion may even have been harnessed along with the recycled carbon fibre, but Parcours has the data to back it all up, and I really believe they’re onto something with VibraCORE and this wheelset.
The British brand is not pushing the sustainability angle, but even though the performance benefit is Parcours’ focus, it will undoubtedly add appeal.
Additionally, although £2,499 is a lot of money by anybody’s standards, the Vision Metron 45 RS specced with the Felt Nexar has a RRP of £3,099 while the Roval Rapide CLX III is also higher priced. The Scope Artech 4 is almost £1,000 more expensive.
The Parcours Strade GT looks like a unique and exceptional wheelset that ticks not only the latest lightweight and aero boxes but also introduces significant new technology that could revolutionise the way carbon rims are designed from now.
What does this mean for wider carbon fibre manufacturing in the cycle industry? Can entire wheels and frames be made out of recycled material? Last month I interviewed the head of R&D at a prestigious Italian bike brand. He said he was talking to a specialist British company, and his "dream" was to make the next model in a particular series completely out of recycled carbon fibre.
Specification
- Rim depth: front 49.2mm / rear 54.0mm
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Max rim width: front 32.5mm / rear 30.5mm
- Internal rim width: 23.5mm front and rear
- Hub: Parcours CS (captive spoke design) with 60T star ratchet drive
- Weight: front 495g / rear 635g
- Spokes: Alpina Carbolite Aero
- Price: £2,499 with steel bearings / £2,719 with ceramic bearings
For all the details and to buy, visit Parcours' website.
