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Alexander Bont Interview: Kinetic Wheels

Alexander Bont, director of Bont Skates, had a lot to say about the development of the new Kinetic HR banked track wheels. All very interesting. I couldn't fit it all in the story so I'm posting the full interview here:

Is the Kinetic wheel the first one to use golf ball technology/materials in an inline skate wheel?

Bont is the first company to use golf ball technology inside an inline wheel. As for the only, I can't say for sure because Atom has a new material in their wheel, but they won't say what it is.

We have been working on this project for the past four years, trying to find the right material, hardness and size of the flex band.

The flexband was originally much smaller, but it wasn't providing enough 'pop' at the end of the push. So we increased the size of the flex band a year ago and then spent the last year playing with different flexband durometers.

We were looking for a material with super high rebound. Golf balls have a super high rebounding core so we thought that was a good place to start. I spoke to some of my friends in different sports manufacturing industries about where we could source the material found inside golf balls. We located two companies in the US who supply golf ball manufacturers and got some samples.

The wheel itself can not be made out of the golf ball material because it would wear out very quickly. But if we house it inside the urethane, then we could gain the benefit of the rebound with the wear properties of the urethane.

How does the Dual Durometer Flex Band improves the performance of the wheel?

Skaters need to skate on a variety of different surfaces. Even when they are skating on a Vesmacco track as an example, the tracks vary from city to city and country to country. This is because the materials that the track was made from vary from place to place. At Bont, we are working to create the best wheel for every application and every skater. On the same track, skater A may want a more flexible wheel to be able to cut in underneeth the other skaters in the corners, where as skater B may want a stiffer wheel because he/she is a more powerful skater.

We need to cater to both types of skaters. A sprinter will want a more grippy wheel than a long distance skater. We need to cater to sprinters and distance skaters alike. The Dual Durometer Flex Band (DDFB) gives us the flexibility to create wheels for every type of skater. We can make the flex band harder or softer but not only that, we can also make the inside of the flex band much softer than the outside to give the wheel a totally different feel.

What is the mechanical lock? ... Is it the black plastic (in cross section photo) ridge that rises from the hub?

Correct. The urethane is poured into a mold and the mechanical lock holds the urethane on the hub. We also have some wheels without a mechanical lock which we call Cabriolet. The urethane is attached to the hub with an adhesive. This type of wheel gives the skater a wheel that is more maneuverable but is slower. The Kinetic wheel has a flex band so it is faster than a cabriolet wheel, and it gains the maneuverability from the flex band so it is the best of both worlds in one wheel.

Could you please briefly describe the evolution of Bont wheels?

The first three generations of wheels were based around improving urethane and hub design. We then had a totally radical idea to build a polycarbonate super light weight hub for the Wayv wheel which was a failure.

After that, we really took a step back and had a look at where we wanted our wheel program to go. There were a number of problematic wheels on the market, some were two piece hubs that were seperating, others had bearing seats that didn't fit properly. So the first criteria that we wanted was a one piece hub, one that had no problems. However, we had been doing a lot of analysis on the benefits that a flexible hub could offer. So there was a balance between making a flexible hub, and making a hub that would never fail.

We started by making the tooling for the hub with thin spokes because we could always take metal off the tooling to make the hub spokes larger. We kept increasing the thickness of the spokes until we got to the point where we were happy with the flex and the hub wouldn't break. We then set about formulating the urethane to match this new hub. For a while there we were releasing new wheels every few weeks because we kept tweaking the urethane to make it work with this new hub. That's why we have these closeout wheels: http://bontwheels.com/products/closeout.html

They are not bad wheels, they are just not as good as the current wheels. Once we had a wheel that we knew was as good as or better than anything on the market, we then set about work on the flex band because we had a benchmark for this new hub so we were looking for ways to go beyond solid urethane wheels.

The first flex bands were made of urethane but they were too small and the urethane added some flex and rebound, but not enough to make a real difference to the wheel. So we quickly started looking for other materials to use inside the wheels and that's when we had the idea for using golf ball material.

We had done a lot of work with the Cabriolet style of wheel but we didn't want to lose the speed that we lost when we went away from the mechanical lock. So, we decided to engineer the flex band around the mechanical lock and then spent literally a year tweaking the flex band hardness to get the mix right.

Is this wheel just for skating on banked tracks?

We designed this wheel for banked tracks but our team will also use them on the road in some events. It depends on the course. We decided to design the Kinetic wheel for the banked track first because skaters need a more flexible wheel so they can make passes in the corners. When everyone is skating at top speed and one skater has the ability to cut in low without losing grip, that is a big advantage and that is what the Kinetic wheel allows.

Is the Kinetic wheel a good choice for road skating?

We have two awesome road wheels at the moment. The Highroller (HR) and the Highroller + Roll (HRR). The HR is the longest lasting wheel on the market while being extremely fast. But our team asked us for another wheel that sacrificed some of the wear properties of the HR for more speed. So we developed the HRR.

The Kinetic wheel has more processes to make it so it is more expensive than the HR or HRR. But if you are looking for a wheel that offers more maneuverability without sacrificing roll, then it is the wheel for you on the road.

Who is involved in the design of these wheels?

Our sponsored skaters give us lots of ideas and feedback on what they want from the next generation of wheels. We then discuss it with everyone at Bont and the engineers at the wheel factory to come up with new ideas for making improvements on a wheel for each application. All of us have a lot of input into the wheels.

Where is the wheel made?

The wheels are made in Los Angeles, USA.

Do you expect a lot of sales of 105mm wheels?

I am not expecting too many sales of 105mm. The uptake of 105mm is quite slow.

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