Kappius Components / Broken Carbon

By Eddie Clark  

(February 9, 2012) BOULDER, Colo.—The father and son team of Russell Kappius and Brady Kappius know a thing or two about bikes that may just have you seeking their cutting edge Evolution Hub System and carbon repair services sooner than you think.   

Going back to 1976, Russell started working in a bike shop as a shop rat in Lakewood and began racing in 1978.  Since then he has raced bikes every year, and has also picked up 6 master national mountain bike titles.  He also studied geophysical engineering at the School of Mines, and works as a research geophysicist, which he loves, but now is also driven to make bikes better.  Specifically, to improve the rear hub which has essentially gone unchanged from its last basic design upgrade dating back to the 80's.

According to Russell, "The problem is, hubs have been passed over technologically for over 20 years.  In other components, everything has gone over-sized and lighter.  With the Evolution hub system, we've introduced an over-sized drive system that takes advantage of the current inefficiencies.  It's about re-thinking the hub design."   

Nearly four years ago, it occurred to Russell that there was a bunch of wasted space inside the modern cassette.  "We thought through what we could do to improve it (the rear hub/cassette interface).  We took out the inner part of the cassette, filled up the void with a functional hub, and make it fit under an 11-23 cog set."

By doing so, they were able to place the wheel bearings much wider apart, create a larger drive system, and make an obviously bigger hub shell- big flanges make stronger wheels.

"There's a lot of these fundamentals that are easy for me to do if you re-design the (cassette/hub) interface and it's engagement system", says Russell. 

"The engagement system was kind of a fall out of the oversized design that I didn't even think about.  Now we have an engagement system that is super fast, but most importantly it's oversized so it will last forever.  It's really durable, reliable, simple, and better performing. We rethought the interface to make the overall design better".

Speaking of performance, this hub has super fast engagement.  In contrast, a DT240 has 18 engagement points, a Chris King has 72, an Industry Nine has 120, and the Evolution is twice as fast with 240 points of engagement in a revolution.  The hub has 8 pawls, in 4 pairs, and they each engage in pairs that are opposite of each other.  In each pawl there is a rare earth magnet embedded that springs the pawl out to engage the hub to create a simpler system with one less moving part.  The magnetized pawls also make it really easy to take apart and re-assemble.

"The 240 point engagement changes the way you ride, which isn't necessarily intuitive.  Everybody that's been on it realizes it changes the way you ride because of the instant engagement", notes Russell.  Think about having an instant extra half or quarter pedal stroke available that normally wouldn't exist when racing, riding technical terrain, or even on the run-in to a jump.  The near instant engagement has clear benefits to mountain biking, cyclocross racing, and criterium racing.

"What we own in terms of a patent is an external oversized drive.  The drawback of existing internal drive systems is the wheel bearing is pushed further in as opposed to having the wheel bearings farther apart for increased strength.  The key to this is putting the drive system on the outside of the hub."

It's also lighter than most available hubs, and Russell adds, "I think we could take our 270 gram rear hub down to 200 grams with more development".  The disc compatible version hubs have a flange design that features integral mounting points for a disc rotor in the flange, which is simpler and lighter.  The flange design was done by Brady.

Russell has won 2 national titles on these hubs, and the current system has seen between 400-500 hundred hours of use.  All of the engineering fundamentals suggest this system should be two to three times stronger than any other.  Most importantly, Russell adds, "I just want to ride my bike in the backcountry, and never have to worry about it again, that's really the goal".

Considering Brady has been around and riding bikes as long as he can remember and that he even won his first race at only four years old, it's obvious that the bike is an important part of the family.  Brady and Russell have been working and tinkering with carbon fiber for about the last 10 years, and Brady was 16 when he started playing with kevlar and carbon fiber cloth.

"I was just messing around seeing what I could do with carbon fiber.  I knew I wanted to be an engineer from when I was little", says Brady.  His undergrad was in metallurgical and materials engineering from the School of Mines, and he got his masters in mechanical engineering with a materials focus from CU Boulder. 

The concept for Broken fiber started from necessity much like Russell's desire for a better  hub system.  Brady pointed out, "The first frames we repaired were ones broken from falling over on a rock while mountain biking.  I've never built a frame, but mainly wanted to fix our broken carbon frames instead of scrapping them or spending a bunch of money to have them replaced."

Interestingly, many of the broken frames Brady receives were actually damaged while being transported or from shipping.

Brady has been repairing carbon frames for 4 years now, and started ramping up his business Broken Carbon in the last year.  "My cost to repair a broken frame is roughly one tenth of what it would be to replace it.  I can also repair carbon wheels and carbon soled shoes", says Brady.  "I get paid to race my bike, I have my own business, and help my Dad with his business."  What more could you ask for?

The Kappius Components Evolution hub system will retail for $1000 ($699 for the rear and $299 for the front).  The rear hub requires an additional SRAM X or Red cassette (purchase of the rear hub includes the re-working done on the cassette), and both cassettes are also available for purchase directly through Kappius Components.  The first production run of Evolution hubs will be complete in the next few weeks.  Also, Kappius Components will have a booth at the Sea Otter Classic with demo wheels (and bikes) to test ride and purchase, and will also be on display at NAHBS next month.

Visit www.kappiuscomponents.com for more info on the Evolution hub system, and www.brokencarbon.com for more information on carbon repair services.