I talked with Steve in the Calfee Design booth at Interbike. I have ridden on a Calfee black bamboo bike. The ride quality is cool. I have not had a chance to ride the Calfee Spiderweb, the one with the frame that looks like, well, spiderwebs made out of carbon fiber strands that have been magically frozen into the form of a road bike frame. The Spiderweb bike frame has lots of holes, and it showcases the unique and unexpected possibility of using carbon fibers to create organic looking bike frames.
Photos by wheelgirl taken in Vegas at Interbike 2007
The new Arantix bike frame is another bike frame with lots of little holes in it. But this bike frame is about repeatable design. Made by Delta 7 Sports, the frame uses carbon fiber and Kevlar, and it joined by carbon lugs. The isotruss design determines the strength-to-weight ratio. (Sorry, but "truss" is a word my brain associated with medical wear for hernia patients.) The big picture of the manufacturing process is that bundles of carbon fiber strands woven and wrapped with Kevlar strings, then the whole thing is baked in an oven. According to the Delta 7 Sport website, the frame uses 1,672 linear feet of carbon, which is roughly about five and a half football fields of fiber. The frame is hand-made by Delta Sport 7 in what appears, from the website, to be Payson, Utah. The frame weight is listed as about 2.7 lbs, which makes it approximately the same weight as titanium frame.
I have no idea how the frame rides. The Arantix Isotruss frames are priced at $6995.00 each. Delta 7 Sport expects to ship frames to dealers in 2008. (Post something if you have taken a demo ride.) My immediate thought is that it will be a nightmare to clean after a day in the mud or on the battlefield. And you better hope you don't fall into anything that smells foul. Because if you think that cleaning the sole of a shoe is difficult, my guess is that you will be the lucky one if the only thing molding inside your frame tubes is the residue from your sports drinks and power candy. (More after the jump about the video and the mention of the Arantix and shrapnel.)
Photo lifted from the Delta 7 Sports site.
The guy jumping off and on the benches with the Arantix in the video on gizmodo isn't really doing anything crazy impressive when it comes to showcasing the frame. Neighborhood children do this on dumpster bikes. I would rather see someone smack the chain stay with a sledgehammer and /or machete. And if you are going to mention "shrapnel" in relation to a bike frame isolating damage, as the one guy does in the video, let's take away the frame from the other guy riding down the stairs, and see how it holds up on the shooting range. (I could get almost two custom Lynskey titanium Level 2 frames for that price. And titanium and shrapnel do have a long history.)
Photos lifted from gizmodo and the Delta 7 Sports site.
