composites, quality and reputation

pliptrot

Gents,

I am looking for some in-depth information on composite frames and who may be well regarded in this field. In the days when steel was the only material for bike frames we knew a great deal about the tube sets on offer and much about the reputations of builders. Now composites are in vogue, some folk tell me that the entire market offering for composites (at equivalent price points) is generic - given that a small number of suppliers provide the fibres and epoxies, and an even smaller number of far-eastern factories make the frames. I understand certain manufacturers in Europe do their own thing, and you pay for that, it seems. Are the high prices worth it?

EKIMIKE

This is not in-depth in the scientific sense. Just a consumer market perspective.

In the 'off the peg' market it's very much a get what you pay for, sliding scale of quality. There are exceptions as ever. Generally, if you're paying £850+ for a carbon frame and fork you're not going to go wrong. Below that you're into 'generic mould' territory and they tend to be adequately durable but not so great a ride or quality.

There are some extremely experienced artisans making custom, made-to-measure composite frames: Crumpton; Bertoletti/Legend; Sarto; Parlee; Cyfac, to name a few. Worth the money? That's too subjective a judgement to make. If you have the money, you're certainly going to get something different (custom geo, custom paint, choice of fork e.t.c.), but better and how much better? Hard to quantify. Some of these guys can get frames down to (a true) 650/700g without going astronomical on price. You'd be hard pressed to find anything like that off the peg.

You're correct though, there are only a limited number of suppliers for the raw composite material. Some of the custom builders are using tube-sets from companies like Enve (to a certain specification probably, not generic), others are constructing tubes entirely in-house, others use a mix. I don't think that makes the entire market generic though. There's a lot that goes on between ordering sheets of pre-preg and shipping a frame to the customer.

Either way it seems composite frames are in vogue, but not necessarily because it's just a trend - it's because there have been huge developments in the use of composites technology for bikes in the last 10-15 years. Now, it's as safe-a-bet as any other material commonly used (steel, aluminium, titanium).