ENVE Composites, creators of the world's toughest bikes for the world's toughest downhill races, turned to Zyvex and our Arovex® prepreg material to give their riders the winning edge.

Zyvex partnered with ENVE to develop tougher, champion-quality wheels for their downhill performance bike.

Our Solution

Arovex® was intended to reduce wheel fractures and improve overall durability. 

The Result

The new Mountain DH rims, powered by Arovex®, reduced fractures per season from 75 to ZERO. Typically aluminum rims were changed 180 times per season, but the new Mountain DH rims were used without replacement for an entire season, and carried ENVE-sponsored rider Greg Minnaar to victory at the 2012 World Cup opener in South Africa. These rims and other ENVE products using Arovex are now available to the public in stores and at www.enve.com.

C-12 recognized that lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) found that between 2001 and 2010, participation in lacrosse is up 218.1% with popularity among both men and women. Because of the sport's rapid growth and the little innovation in the market on shafts since the introduction of titanium in 1992, C-12 decided that they should enter the playing field with a new shaft that was lighter, stronger and overall better than titanium, which all the premier lacrosse companies were using.

 C-12 was able to achieve incredible strength and toughness by incorporating the most advanced carbon fiber material, Arovex®, a carbon-nanotube enhanced prepreg made by Zyvex, into their shafts.

C-12’s design allows for faster shots, and better passes, ball control and temperature resistance. Their seamless braided carbon fiber, the highest performing carbon available, eliminates all weak points from the shaft. This superior durability has led to a field failure rate of zero, breaking the perception that carbon fiber lacrosse sticks cannot withstand the physicality of the sport.

The exo-skeleton structure is designed to add a controlled flex, create unparalleled strength, and transfer energy axially for better control. The film used to wrap the shaft is extremely tough and allows C-12 to reverse print customer-specific graphics.

Increasing rapidly in popularity, C-12 moved to a larger manufacturing location before their first year was over. Carbon fiber had been used in lacrosse shafts before, but they had never incorporated the strength and durability that C-12 could achieve.

The performance of the shaft underwent the ultimate tests when a 6-foot-2, 215 pound man stood on the shaft and when the shaft was used to deadlift 270 pounds. In both cases, neither shaft became broken, dented, or bent. 

Today, C-12 Lacrosse is working with Zyvex to incorporate the next innovative line of advanced composites into their shafts, including enhancements from carbon nanotubes and graphene. To play to the best of your ability, you have to have the best equipment, and C-12 provides just that.

Zyvex pioneered the first commercial use of carbon nanotubes with our partnership with Easton Sports starting in 2005. Zyvex provided a unique dispersion of CNT material designed to enhance the product portfolio of Easton as well as integrate easily into their manufacturing process. 

Easton Sports announced the addition of Zyvex’s NanoSolve® Materials to Easton’s StealthCNT baseball bats. According to Easton, Zyvex’s NanoSolve® Material “strengthens composite structures to provide improved handle designs with optimized flex, responsiveness, and more ‘kick’.”

Today, the R&D100-award winning technology in NanoSolve® is widely used across our advanced materials, and our additions of graphene and other carbon nanomaterials have enabled even higher levels of performance. Read more about our core technology on the Kentera™ page.