Reynolds Cycling Factory Tour – Wheel Torture Lab
Mtbr visited the Reynolds Cycling headquarters in Sandy, Utah a few months ago and got an inside look at their world class facility. The new 25,000 square foot building focuses solely on wheels and this is where new wheels are researched, designed, created and tested. It is also their business offices as well as the US distribution center.
Our tour was hosted by Rob Aguero, Director of Sales and Marketing. Rob gave us a short history of the brand and explained the need for a new facility to tighten up operations. Reynolds Cycling now makes only wheels.
In this photo, Rob Aguero (Director of Sales and Marketing) is holding up an example of what is possible with inkjet printing on the surface of carbon disc wheels.
Following the brief intro, Reynolds Cycling longtime CFO Mike Dufner gave us more background about the company, where they stand now and where the company is going. Next, we met with Paul Lew, Director of Technolgy and Innovation. Paul is one of six engineers and is founder of Lew Composites, a company that Reynolds purchased back in 2001. An expert with composites and aerodynamics, Paul made the first carbon clincher and that patent is now held by Reynolds. Finally, we met Kim Kington who served as our guide for most of the tour. Kim came from a background in aerospace, like several of Reynolds engineers and she is excited to be working for Reynolds.
Paul Lew – Director of Technolgy and Innovation.
After the introductory presentation, we got to step into the “back room”. The first thing one notices about the factory floor is the size of the entire building.
Molds
The huge room is full of machines, the first of which that we saw were the mold making machines. The molds are CNC’d from aluminum to make them light enough to carry. The machine uses something called Computational Fluid Dynamics to “etch” the mold. The molds are made in Utah, tested, then shipped to Reynolds wholly owned factory in Guangzhu, China. Having their own factory gives Reynolds a level of control that they would otherwise not have.
Continue to page 2 for more on raw materials and wheel building.
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