DY M AG W H E E LS C E O C H R I S S H E L LY
P98
INTERVIEW
Our products today are as
good as anything on the market,
if not better. But they are very
expensive to make and very
labor intensive. We don't have
any problems with the product
design; we do have a problem
with the way we make it in terms
of cost and throughput.
Are there avenues to be
able to address that issue?
Oh, yeah. We are going to move
our production process into a
Resin Transfer Molding process,
the same as we developed for the
mass production car wheels. We
will have new carbon wheels com-
ing soon for motorcycles.
All this talk of carbon fiber
and forged aluminum, what
about the forged magnesium
wheel range?
We're getting out of magne-
sium production for the simple
reason the costs are escalating,
and the environmental chal-
lenges of making those products,
surface treating them and all,
means that they're costing us
more to make than carbon now.
Forged wheels are obviously
still in MotoGP, but we don't
make forged magnesium. You
couldn't make hollow spoke
wheels with forged magnesium.
It means that the only product we
could conceivably make in forged
magnesium would be the CH3,
but to be honest, we can make
a very good, lightweight forged
aluminum wheel at a much lower
cost.
We will keep the CH3, which
is the traditional Dymag three-
spoke wheel from the '70s and
'80s. It was the world's first three-
spoke magnesium wheel. We are
going to keep that product, but
we're going to move it to forged
aluminum. It will look, perform
and weigh the same.
Could you make a CH3
three-spoke in carbon fiber?
That's an interesting question.
We haven't looked at doing that
per se. One of the issues with
the carbon fiber wheels for a lot
of people is the style looks very
important. The CH3 is a very old,
classic design. Again, I'm not
sure we could sell many of them
with that style in carbon when the
alternatives are much more aes-
thetically pleasing and technically
better. Again, it comes down to
market size, market trends.
MotoAmerica Superbike privateer Kyle Wyman is
one of the leading U.S. riders on Dymags.
