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CeramicSpeed spins out $1,700 3D-printed titanium derailleur pulleys & new outboard headset

Written by Tyler Benedict
28 Comments
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Shown aboard this custom titanium Mosaic Cycles road bike featuring ENVE fork, wheels and cockpit were the new CeramicSpeed OSPW titanium derailleur pulley wheel upgrade and Outboard Headset.

This isn’t their first effort to 3D print titanium pulley wheels, but it’s definitely their most expensive. Two years ago they showed the first iteration, which were sized like traditional jockey wheels but hollow. Then they launched the first OSPW system with oversized alloy wheels later in 2015 that had several bearing options.

Now, it’s been upgraded to be lighter and using a shape inspired by nature…

 

Resembling the Danish national flower, the Marguerite Daisy, the design holds the 18-tooth ring on hollow spindles leading to a core with their ceramic bearings. They say it’s 10% lighter than alloy wheel, but twice as durable. Priced at $1,700 (€1,500) it’s meant to be a showcase of the no-holds-barred technology they’re capable of.

The wheels are compatible with the existing OSPW cage, which replaces the stock derailleur cage. It’s shown here with a fresh new UFO coated chain.

They’ve also introduced a new outboard variant to fit bicycle frames with a 44mm headtube, which is what many handmade/custom bike builders are using these days because of the versatility it offers in fork and headset selection. As shown, it made for 1-1/4″ to 1-1/8″ tapered forks, which are used more for road (so, no, you probably wouldn’t wanna put this on your mountain bike). Additional sizes will follow.

It gets the same CeramicSpeed bearings and alloy cups as their other headsets, just in a new size. Retail is $389 (€299).

CeramicSpeed.com
Tyler Benedict
11,282 articles

Tyler Benedict is the Founder of Bikerumor.com, where he’s been writing about the latest bikes, components, and cycling technology for almost two decades. Prior to that, Tyler launched and built multiple sports nutrition brands and consumer goods companies, mostly as an excuse to travel and ride in new places.

Based in North Carolina, Tyler also loves the Vanlife & family adventure travel and is always on the lookout for the next shiny new part and off-grid adventure.

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28 Comments
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Fin
Fin
7 years ago

$1700 for jockey wheels is, seriously taking the michael…

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sad
sad
7 years ago
Reply to  Fin

plus its 3d printed, not cast and machined. its not as strong.

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Milessio
Milessio
7 years ago

€199 for their standard Al pulleys, so €1,500 extra for the Ti, and they’re not even very aerodynamic!

I’m sure williamsongoods.com could make them more expensive by upgrading with a python wrap 🙂

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me
me
7 years ago

$1700 on a outdated drive train system. For that price I’d buy a Pinion gearbox….and chance oil once a year.

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mnorris122
mnorris122
7 years ago
Reply to  me

If you’re considering a gearbox bike, then this product is definitely not meant for you

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Mike A
Mike A
7 years ago

It’s 3D printing, not milling. Can anyone justify this price? Titanium isn’t that rare, it’s just hard to shape. Hell, I thought the whole point of 3D printing titanium was that you could make shapes that were too costly with traditional forging and milling.

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E
E
7 years ago
Reply to  Mike A

Exactly. That part could be made with traditional methods for 1/10th of the cost.

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Greg
Greg
7 years ago
Reply to  Mike A

It’s to make shapes that you simply couldn’t do with other manufacturing techniques. Each of the little spider arms in the pulley is hollow.
They also say it’s just to show what they’re capable of doing. It’s like a concept car, except you can still buy it if you really really want it.

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Jamie
Jamie
7 years ago

The titanium powder that they have to use in 3d printing is not cheap at all. A really thorough breakdown of the process can be read here

http://pencerw.com/feed/2015/3/15/3d-printing-titanium-and-the-bin-of-broken-dreams

Basically $300-$600 per pound of the titanium powder needed to run the machine. Your process is almost painfully slow. You need a lot of finish work once the part is produced, especially intricate parts such as these. So, the $100-200$ per part mentioned above may be just for that, but for these wheels I’d guesstimate around $500 per part at the very least.

So, material costs, labour,, R&D just to design them, and then likely producing mass batches and having them worked on. They may not actually be selling these at much of a profit whatsoever. Just something cool.

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Jamie
Jamie
7 years ago
Reply to  Jamie

Quick edit, I wrote in per LBS, measurement should be per KG

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alvis
alvis
7 years ago
Reply to  Jamie

So say a wheel weighs 20g that’s 50 per Kilo so even at the top end of the price band that’s US$12/wheel for materials, multiply that by 70, (assuming the US$1700 is for the pair), for design, finishing and distribution costs. Still seems pretty overpriced to me.

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Tim
Tim
7 years ago

Let’s look at it from the business’s point of view rather than the consumer’s or the (armchair) engineer’s. These guys already own the 3D printer, so they don’t even need to produce anything until orders come in. The only thing they need to buy is some titanium bar stock. Heck, they could even buy that after receiving their first order. So- all these guys need to do is make all the other stuff they normally make, and if at some point an order for these pulleys comes along, they fire up the printer and make them, earning a cool 1600 euros or so for a tiny amount of work. They’re basically gambling on a few one percenters hearing about these amazing pulleys and clicking to order. Smart. It’s taking from the very rich and giving it to the merely rich.

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R. T.
R. T.
7 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Well said, Tim.

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joe
joe
7 years ago
Reply to  Tim

You are obviously not a good (armchair) engineer. They use titanium powder for 3d printing, not bar stock.

“This machine is known as the DMLS machine, and it uses a powerful optic laser to perform the construction. The laser fires inside of a special building chamber, and in this chamber, a special platform dispenses the building material over a recoating blade, ensuring that the layer is materialized before the blade moves onward to the next layer. This technology fuses the titanium powder into a solid form through the use of local melting by the focus of the laser beam. Layer by layer, the machine builds the object, usually at twenty micrometers of material utilized per layer. This process can easily allow for very complicated geometric figures to be created from the image. The machine handles all of the work after the technician designs the image, and the process is fully automated, taking just a few hours without any other tooling. The DMLS process is very accurate and can result in detailed objects that possess excellent surface quality and durable properties.”

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blah blah blah
blah blah blah
7 years ago

f#ck i just took 1 second off my pb on a local climb 1700 bucks well spent i reckon!

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blah blah blah
blah blah blah
7 years ago

just installed the headset and lost another tenth, best upgrade ever! pumped! hell yeah

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lightbody
lightbody
7 years ago

When you see company like cyclingceramic doing their own pulley wheels in france at 130$ handmade in the same condition, I don’t loose time with this business company. They are so far from cycling… ridiculous

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Nastran
Nastran
7 years ago

CeramicSpeed, the most ridiculous and overpriced brand of bike industry…
3D printing is not justified at all for is kind of part, it can be easyliy made by machining, then the roughness of 3D printed titanium is over 10 micrometer so you need to machine the bearing boring and the teeths.

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Allan
Allan
7 years ago

So the dentist can tell his buddies at the coffee shop, my YUUUUUUUGE rear derailleur pulley is 3D printed titanium! It’s like that Key and Peele skit with one guy having to keep out-doing his friend with hat style.

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Pat
Pat
7 years ago

Would the headset above raise the front end of bike thus changing the axle to crown height, the trail and ultimately the handling? Maybe the bike is designed with this in mind

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CXisFun
CXisFun
7 years ago
Reply to  Pat

Headsets don’t change axle-to-crown, the crown is a part of the fork. That said, I’m *guessing* this has a pretty similar stack height to any other 44mm external bearing headset, so it’s probably not going to make any changes to the front end of the bike.

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Jason
Jason
7 years ago

“They say it’s 10% lighter than alloy wheel..”

Ceramic Speed website says alloy OSPW weigh 70g. So is the weight savings is 7 grams? Whoa.

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MaraudingWalrus
MaraudingWalrus
7 years ago

I mean it’s totally ludicrous. BUT I’m sure there are some people out there who are a few tenths of a second away from being on the top step of the podium at races and this could theoretically make the difference for some of them.

Not worth it for the vast majority of people, but for some folks the calculus may work out. Sort of.

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Pete
Pete
7 years ago

18t pulleys so yesterday, where are the 24t?

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Andy
Andy
7 years ago

Eh, it’s meant to be ridiculous. This is like the crazy halo-concept cars that manufacturers design for shows just to show what they’re capable of doing, not actually producing them. They’ll have a pro-triathlete on one but I suppose that’s about it.

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Chase
Chase
7 years ago

Why?

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Hugo
Hugo
7 years ago

Pretty pulleys

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Double ZZ
Double ZZ
7 years ago

Hold the phone. This adds another level to Maslows heiarchy of needs. Can somebody tweet that??

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