What do you do when you grow tired of the corporate grind? For mechanical engineer Stephan Bekker the answer was to start his own bike-rim manufacturing company after spending several years devising and producing various composite structures for an aerospace group in Cape Town.
A mountain-bike rim takes severe punishment, which means it is not an easy product to manufacture.
“A spoked wheel is a very complex structure,” explains Bekker.
“The rim technically ‘hangs’ on its spokes. When the rim is laced and spokes tensioned up, there are more than three tons of tension on the rim. With 28 spokes, that is 120 kg on each spoke.”
Bike rims made from traditional aluminium do have their limitations, he adds.
Aluminium is good for mass production, but optimising the rim structure for weight and performance is limited.
Carbon fibre, however, is a light-weight material which gives the option to strengthen the rim in high stress areas by optimising the fibre orientation.
It is also possible to build more flexibility into the structure where required.
Bekker’s business partner in South Industries, Nico van Zyl, is also an engineer, as well as a passionate mountain biker.
“Back in 2015 there was an opportunity in the carbon-fibre rim market to bring out a wider rim profile for XC and Marathon bikes,” notes Bekker.
“We were confident that we could design and produce bike rims that would compete with the highest quality in the world.
“We decided to specialise in mountain-bike wheel rims and not road-bike products, as this market is saturated and highly competitive.”
South Industries, located in Blackheath, Cape Town, made its first successful carbon-fibre rim in 2017 – the XC.
Since then, the range has expanded to four products: The XC, Enduro, Downhill and Gravel, sold largely at local bike shops and through European distributors.
On each wheel, there appears a small ‘Handgemaak’ slogan in white – Afrikaans for ‘handmade’.
The wheels all pretty much do what it says on the badge. Downhill wheels are, for example, for those daring mountain bike riders who chase down steep inclines at high speeds.
To do this, the rim has to take a helluva lot of punishment.
“Ours is a high-performance, niche product,” says Bekker.
“Since 2017 we’ve had wheels in some of the world’s biggest races, such as the Cape Epic, UCI World Enduro Series and Gravel Races.”
Covid-19 did throw a bit of a curve ball at the company, and the after-effects of an unbalanced and, in certain areas, over-saturated supply chain are still in play, says Bekker.
In an attempt to diversify, and to ensure that South Industries’ seven employees retained their jobs, the company started to produce carbon-fibre wheelchair wheels and push rims, bike handlebars, as well as products in the broader recreational field.
Today, around 50% of its revenue comes from bike wheels, with the remainder flowing from alternative products.
“One of our shareholders is Raoul de Jongh, a South African who resides in Spain, which enables us to export wheel-rims to Europe,” says Bekker. “We also send wheels to Singapore and Australia. We export around 10% of our production.”
“We are always looking to grow and diversify.
“The most difficult part of starting up South Industries was to industrialise the process, and to guarantee the quality on an international level, especially when considering the punishment a product such as a mountain bike rim has to take – and we have to do this with each new product we conceive,” adds Bekker.
“Today we can design, process-engineer, build and certify whatever we build.”
A wheel rim is not an easy thing to make, Bekker reiterates. It has to be perfectly round, without any blemish or weakness.
When he and business partner Van Zyl couldn’t find the machinery to build their carbon-fibre products, they were forced to design and built almost all of the machines on South Industries’ factory floor.
“Starting a design and manufacturing company selling your own branded products has been challenging,” notes Bekker.
“Finding assistance from the government to support a venture like this has proved impossible.
“You would imagine that small manufacturing startups would qualify for tax breaks or assistance with financing, or something similar, but there was nothing.
“What we really need is an online, fit-for-purpose portal from government to help manufacturing startups and to ensure that we develop the technology and technical skills we need within South Africa – and this support should not be valid only for empowerment startups.”
