Carbon Bonding Vs Monocoq Frames

SheldonBrownIsLegend
SheldonBrownIsLegend Posts: 18
edited December 2011 in Workshop
I have recent looked at purchasing one of the astoundingly well priced Ribble Bikes and am torn between the fantastically comfortable Bianco with its excellent reviews and the emphatically good looking Evo.

The downside to the Evo is the carbon bonded tubes, this is old school manufacturing process which has previously been very flawed reborn with highly modern materials versus a technically supreme process of carbon single molding.

Any thoughts???

Comments

  • timmyturbo
    timmyturbo Posts: 617
    monocoq all the way i reckon
    Britannia waives the rules
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    You wouldn't have seen Sheldon Brown dissing carbon lugged frames. :lol:

    Put it this way - there are plenty of cheap monocoque carbon frames out there but precious few cheap lugged carbon frames.....

    My lugged carbon Look weighs quite a lot less than my Monocoque Ribble and rides and handles better.
    Faster than a tent.......
  • giant_man
    giant_man Posts: 6,878
    It's all in the ride. Imo carbon lugged frames give the rider more feedback and not such a wooden ride as many carbon monocoque frames seem to have.
  • Monty Dog
    Monty Dog Posts: 20,614
    As previously said, they are few monocoque frames out there that can offer the comparable ride and handling to a Colnago C59, Parlee, Crumpton, Time or Look. There's a simple engineering reason for this - the lugs (or bonded and wrapped joints) provide the necessary strength where it's needed - at the joints and have the thinnest section at the middle of the tubes. Trying to replicate the same construction with a monocoque is tricky - otherwise it'll just end up over-built. Moreover - you don't have the same design flexbility with monocoque - you have to make an expensive mould for every single size - Colnago produce the C59 in 20-odd sizes - no monocoque is available in anything like that. Under what basis is the process flawed - the tubes are bonded using the same means by which the fibres are embedded in a resin matrix. Historic problems were due to dis-similar materials creating galvanic corrosion.
    Make mine an Italian, with Campagnolo on the side..
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    the aerospace industry happily relies on bonding to stick all kinds of components, including CF, together. I wouldn't worry about a lugged, bonded CF bike frame.
  • fredmac
    fredmac Posts: 83
    Reading the BikeRadar review of the Evo (from March 2010) it states that it is a monocoque frame.
    So has it been changed since then, were BikeRadar wrong or is the OP wrong?

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