Black hands for clean rims: CarbonForBikes Lucky Lube®

The positioning of Nova Moto is unusual, passion is at the heart of the strategy – isn’t it antinomic – and its purpose is to detect innovations that change the everyday life of the motorcyclist. CarbonForBikes was THE answer to what is perhaps the main concern in motorcycling, out of safety and weather!

Since this totally unexpected meeting with the CarbonForBikes Lucky Lube® concept in February 2011, the philosophy has remained the same: find, test, validate, negotiate, reference a product and bring it to you through the nova-moto.fr website, live meetings at events, plus various means of communication.

When we position yourself on innovation, it often means leading the commercial launch at the same time as continuing development. How many times have you read, dear prospects, that your kit is not in development? For some of you, I was lucky to be able to contact you after several -long months- and share with you the joy of first starting a development, then -long months later- of the arrival of a new kit compliant with …a new motorcycle, yours : top ! For the majority, I answered many times that I will keep you informed about the developments -which has always been done, until today. I know that some of you have lost patience, I also had the honesty for rare and little registered models to guide you towards solutions that I did not sell.

Today, I have to inform you that, for reasons of profitability and heavy custom development processes for each machine, the Schunk Group company has decided to stop all manufacturing of CarbonForBikes Lucky Lube® kits, this means that Nova Moto will no longer be able to source even the existing kits. The graphite blocks will still be produced in order to meet the needs of customers who have adopted the solution, as this is the core business of the Schunk Group. As for Nova Moto’s customer service, nothing has changed.

It’s the first part of Nova Moto’s history that is coming to an end, 3 years of preparing blocks by hand, mounting them in the rails to avoid any breakage, making a demo on my Z750 or on the S1000RR of Défi 23 Team, I very quickly liked this magical material that is graphite and its properties. Now, you have to accept that when a product so demanding in terms of customization and safety doesn’t meet its profitability, developments can’t move forward. The defect at the birth of this concept is the lack and infeasibility of universality, due to the diversity of motorcycle models on the market, the swingarms sometimes changing with each yearly model on some bikes. Perseverance is a quality, obstinacy is not.

My dream of clean rims I found it, I keep it on my working Z750, I was happy to be able to share it with you. Today, I’m back on the road with my Italian lady for whom I made my initial request to Schunk on this famous Imot 2011 show, still without dry lubrication, but this approach was at the origin of the Nova Moto adventure which continues in a different way.

I am writing here to Nova Moto’s customers: I deeply hope that this will not alter the trust you have placed in me since the beginning. At the risk of disappointing you, I maintain my sincere and transparent line of conduct and inform you individually by email and here, via the Nova Moto’s website. Your pionneer spirit has allowed us to meet each other. Other innovations are to be detected, some are easier than others to implement. Nova Moto was monoproduct at its creation, today it distributes a portfolio of more than 20 brands. From May 15th 2015, only the graphite blocks will remain on the Nova Moto website, thank you for your understanding, and I’m now working on moving forward without this carbon block, and on finding others that will change our everyday motorcycle life …for the best!

 

Update September 2015: Schunk Group offers Nova Moto the possibility to take over part of its German stock, in order to ensure a smooth transition with, I hope, its successor.

Update November 2017: Schunk Group ceases all production of graphite blocks. The blocks offered on the Nova Moto site are available until stocks last.

Text and picture: Isabelle Maillet