The biobased grip series NUCORE is here!
The Nucore Trail, Tour & Town Grips cover all riding styles. Join our journey and come along on an eco-friendlier path!
Biobased materials reduce use of fossil-based plastic
So how is this new grip made and what is special about it? Lockable bike grips normally consist of 2 parts. That is also the case of Nucore, where the inner core is made of a biocomposite using natural fibers and recycled polypropylene. This combination enables a lower CO2 footprint compared to regular materials. This new and improved grip core is the heart of the Nucore series, and also what inspired us to the name!
The outer layer, which is what you touch and see, consists of a hybrid material, combining biobased TPE made from renewable resources such as plant and vegetable crops, with regular TPE.
The bioplastics we use are made exclusively from biomaterials that are grown on soil that is not fit for food production.
One of Herrmans’ main goals is to gradually decrease the dependence on fossil-based plastics. Nucore’s biobased material mix consists of 60% biobased material. In other words, Nucore reduces the use of fossil-based plastic, saving precious non-renewable resources from being extracted unnecessarily from the earth.
Watch the animation to see the different parts of the grip and how they fit together!
To learn even more about the materials and the philosophy around their creation, and find answers to some common questions, you can read more further down on this page.
The Nucore Series fits all Riding Styles
Trail, Tour & Town – we’ve got you covered wherever your ride takes you.
Trail is the first choice for winding paths and tracks.
Tour is our new mini-wing grip used for longer tours or for more support on your trail ride.
Town provides the most support for the hand – perfect for comfy rides out and about on town, or when touring from one town to the next.
Whether you are a biking newbie or a seasoned rider, if you commute with an e-bike or prefer a tough workout ride on the trails, this series has an option for everyone.
Take a look at this video with our new grip designs, and imagine which one complements your bike best!
Nucore grips with Worldclass Comfort and Ergonomics for a safe ride
The new grips are created in collaboration with experienced designers and experts on hand ergonomics. The Nucore grips are lockable, which means they are safe and easy to assemble and adjust to your riding position.
As you would expect from a Herrmans grip, a lot of effort is put into making the grips as comfortable as possible, making sure pressure on the Ulnar nerve is minimized and that the Carpal tunnel is not obstructed during the ride. Safety is the keyword – with grips that are comfortable, fit well in your hand and have the right friction and position, you will have a tight grip on your ride, staying safe wherever you go.
The grips come in two different patterns: the courageous Peak and the harmonious Wave pattern.
Nucore Trail and Tour grips with Peak pattern feature added ribs below for an even safer touch
We have finetuned the pattern depth, position and feel to give you the best riding experience. Softer pattern areas for the more sensitive skin in your palms where you place your weight, and a slightly rougher pattern below to provide as much finger grip as possible, while still feeling comfortable.
Nucore grips with Wave pattern is all about calm and comfort
Visually pleasing, they are a treat to place your hands on. Excellent grip as well thanks to the Wavy pattern covering the crucial areas of the hand where you need most grip, while providing the best possible softness and comfort.
We have listened to user feedback and made the grips softer and with even better damping qualities.
Gorgeous Design with an Abundance of Choices
Sleek and modern textures, choose the pattern that best fits your taste and bike. Do you prefer sleek and laidback black or grey, or are you in for a colorful look? We liked the grips’ new looks so much, so we decided to add a Pastel and a Vivid color range. So you don’t have to choose, you can get the best of both worlds. Take a look at the colour options we chose!
The Nucore Grips
– A Sustainable Milestone in line with our Philosophy
The Nucore series is an important milestone in our long-term work to future-proofing our business and components, being able to offer more sustainable options. This is what both bike manufacturers and consumers are looking for today, and we are making sure we can deliver products that are actually and concretely better for the environment.
We take great pride in being transparent – it can be difficult today for a consumer to evaluate how correct or trustworthy green claims are. From Herrmans you can expect full disclosure – you can be sure that we will tell you the whole story according to our best knowledge – and we will also mention what is possible and not possible to do yet, and tell you how we plan to improve our products in the future. We have chosen this strategy of openness and doing the actual and thorough research work that matters. We don’t just pick easy solutions that “sound green”, but that don’t contribute as much to a real change. But as everyone else we are on a learning journey, and we will share our findings with you as we move forward.
We put a lot of energy and work into rethinking how to best design, produce, reuse, and recycle plastic material and products, and find biobased options that decrease our use of fossil-based materials, and in the long run our carbon footprint.
Why Biobased Plastics, what are the advantages?
Biobased plastics are fully or partially made from biological resources, rather than fossil raw materials. Regular plastics are predominantly a by-product of oil, which is a limited and diminishing resource that we need to use with great care. It’s therefore vital to study how we can work with biobased and renewable materials instead, to find new ways of offering more sustainable bike components. A long-term goal for Herrmans is to diminish our use of fossil based materials, and this is a must if we want to achieve our even bigger goal – to be completely carbon neutral by 2035.
The biobased materials we have chosen are based on raw materials that come from renewable vegetable crops, that are responsibly grown. The vegetable crops used to make our biobased materials are intended only for industrial use, which means that they are grown in poor soil which is not usable for cultivating food. So, the crops used to create our biobased materials have not taken up any land that could have been used for food production, which can be a real problem in some cases of bioplastic use.
A big advantage of using biobased plastic is that it replaces the need to extract and use more oil to create new plastic material for grips. While the vegetable crops are growing, they are also consuming CO2, so it’s a win-win situation.
Biobased materials can contribute to an improved LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), which measures the environmental impact of all stages a product’s life from cradle to grave.
How will we continue to develop the Nucore series?
Further increasing the ratio of biobased material
The percentage of biomaterial is now estimated to be around 60% for the grips. We have submitted the grips to TUV for a certificate of the biobased content, which is a requirement to get an official certification (OK Biobased). The certification is in progress, and we will publish the results here. The goal is a continuous improvement year by year, increasing the ratio of biobased material. This will be possible with new materials coming available and as we research new material mixes that work even better.
So why don’t we just use 100% biobased plastic?
To be able to manufacture grips in large quantities, industrial machinery called “injection molding machines” are used. These machines melt the raw material, inject it into a mold with the shape of the grip, and when the raw material cools down and takes solid form again, a brand-new grip comes out of the machine.
The procedure sounds easy, but the characteristics of the raw material make a big impact on the result. When you try a new material mix, either with recycled or biobased plastic, you need to test thoroughly how the material behaves in the machine. We check if it maintains the same quality and look, does it feel right in the hand (nobody wants a too hard or too sticky grip), does the machine still run smoothly, can we keep material waste at the same or a lower level (it’s not more sustainable if we create more waste), is the biobased material available in large enough quantities etc.
It’s also important to compare the durability of the new material mix – so we test how well the grips withstand UV rays and rough weather, to make sure the biobased grips can endure as much time and wear as a grip made with regular plastic. A grip is not more sustainable if it doesn’t last at least as long as a grip made with regular plastic.
All this considered in the big picture – today the best mix available is the one we use for the Nucore grip series. The development in the industry is rapid due to strong consumer demand, and the material suppliers are working continuously coming up with new mixes, which we will try and test to make even more sustainable products.
To sum it up, today Nucore’s biobased material mix reduces the use of fossil-based plastic by up to 30%, saving precious non-renewable resources from being extracted unnecessarily from the earth.
Offering grips with only recycled plastic
Since there is already a lot of existing plastic material around, it’s wise and efficient to reuse them as much as possible. Already today we are using recycled plastic in several of our other grip models.
In the future we plan to use a similar inner core of the Nucore grips together with other material mixes for the outer layer – for example recycled plastic coming from our own production, perhaps recycled fishnets, or other plastic waste that can be collected and transformed into reusable material.
So look out for more news from Herrmans!
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Herrmans Sustainability Commitments
- Manufactured in Carbon Neutral plant, scopes 1 and 2
- Made with 100 % renewable energy
- Responsibly Made in Finland
Read more on our Sustainability pages! www.herrmans.eu/sustainability