Dec 30

Dec 30 TW Carbon - The Gymnastics of Art and Design

Artisans/Makers, Spoked Dispatch Podcast

Spoked Dispatch Podcast: Episode 1

TW Carbon is one of only a few full-service carbon repair shops in the US. In addition to carbon repair, they produce some very unique custom painted frame works of art.

Over the past 20 years, carbon fiber has become a widely used material in the cycling industry. It has gone from a seemingly fragile space-aged material that was hardly affordable and even less so understood to one of the most widely used materials in the industry today.

The early carbon bike frames utilized straight carbon tubes inserted and bonded to aluminum lugs. Since then carbon technology has advanced to the point where making any shape or form is very much a reality. It is not uncommon to find carbon fiber technology used in anything from shoes to saddles to wheels and the list goes on. Today you would be hard-pressed to find a bicycle component that isn’t available in carbon.

Tools of the trade.

In August of 2020, TW Carbon moved into a new shop attached to Billy Goat Bicycle Company which was formerly A1 Bicycles. This building has been a part of St. Louis bike history for decades.

TW Carbon was started by Nick Hand out of necessity. No longer able to afford to purchase new frames after crashing during races he took it upon himself to learn how to repair frames. Between his background in art and growing up in a household of artists and engineers, he is programmed with the skills and intuition to TW a career.