OnYerLeft
new member
Reged: 06/07/04
Posts: 35
Loc: CA, USA
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with carbon bikes coming out left and right with lots of marketing hype i wonder if anyone here has compared their calfee against other carbon bike(s), or vice versa. i'm seeking objective, and perhaps subjective, views in comparing calfees and other carbon bikes. just want to sort out what's real and not. i can only vouch for calfee since it's the only carbon bike i have. so far still lovin it.
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beegeddie
new member
Reged: 02/24/04
Posts: 9
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My only personal experience recently is with my Calfee also, but I have noticed that a lot of the big name euro companies that produce carbon bikes like Colnago and Look are using a design with carbon lugs now, instead of the aluminum lugs they used in the not so distant past, which says to me that they are emulating Calfee. That's a positive sign that Calfee is the leader in the field.
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skuke
captain
Reged: 12/22/03
Posts: 323
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Quote:
beegeddie wrote:
Colnago and Look are using a design with carbon lugs now, instead of the aluminum lugs they used in the not so distant past, which says to me that they are emulating Calfee. That's a positive sign that Calfee is the leader in the field.
IIRC, the early generation of many carbon frames used Aluminum and other non-carbon lugs. They took great pains to minimize the galvanic reaction and thermo expansion differential issues with the dissimilar materials. And even then, there were frame failure issues. In that regard, I think Calfee had it right all along.
Whether or not Calfee is a leader is open to debate and much personal opinion. Personally, I think he is one of a few in at the front. I lack enough experience (with other frames) to give a fair assessment. However, one disadvantage to Calfee is that he's a relatively small manufacturer and the others are quite large. That means they have a much much larger R+D budgets and may develop ideas faster. I have lots of R+D experience (machinist by trade) and I learned that basically the more time, money and energy you throw at something, the sooner it will be a better "thing" than your competition. Calfee's advantage a few years ago was that he had lots of experience with CF buiding boats which led to bikes. Now that the "big boys" have sorta caught up with the CF learning curve, they will be applying that knowledge to new and better bikes.
Just my $.28 worth.
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Skuke
95 Carbonframes Tetra Pro
92 Bridgestone MB-1
90 Moser 51.151
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bfd
journeyman
Reged: 12/22/03
Posts: 77
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On the Serotta forum, which is currently down, 2 builders were mentioned as "comparable" to Calfee - Parlee on the East Coast and if you're in Texas, a guy named Nick Crumpton.
Heard good things about Parlee and his prices are right there with Calfee. Hampsten cycles has a carbon bike made by Parlee with Hampsten geometry.
Crumpton is new to me. A couple of guys on that forum had his frame and said they were "as good".
One thing I look at is warranty. Calfee support is second to none. For a small company, I would put him close to Trek with its lifetime warranty and mega-dealership network.
I would try to ride them and see.
Good Luck!
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ChrisVT
friend
Reged: 01/08/04
Posts: 38
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Great question. I wish I had a warehouse of CF bikes to sample. I'd love to ride a Calfee, a Parlee, a Guru, a Colnago, a Look, an Aegis and a Cervelo R2.5, and probably lots more that I can't think of right now.
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Insightdriver
captain
Reged: 03/07/04
Posts: 472
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I was browsing the other manufacturers boards on this forum and was struck by how often Calfee is mentioned as either the bike they are comparing theirs with or demonizing Calfee to make their choice of brand seem the better one. The number of posters for other brands is a much smaller number than this brand, as well, or maybe just less vocal. There seems to be a lot more Calfee posts than any other brand that is represented on this forum.
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Lon
sage
Reged: 12/20/03
Posts: 595
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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I'd suspect that you see more Calfee post because Gary had this as a Calfee forum first. Craig linked it to his site and still does so that helps get the word around. I think people that ride some of the other brands don't know of the forum or if they do visit there are not that many posts.
That said Calfee owners are a loyal and happy bunch.
The forum that has a ton of people is the Serotta forum. It is not all Serotta riders but a mix. There are usually somewhere between 20 and 30 people viewing it at any given time. Reading all the posts would be a fulltime job.\
Take care.
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Insightdriver
captain
Reged: 03/07/04
Posts: 472
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Thanks for the background, Lon. I'm new here so I appreciate the information.
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ghostzapper
friend
Reged: 01/23/05
Posts: 29
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Calfee seems to make a product with a lot of manual labor involved, by this I mean the fabrication of the frame seems like a much more hands on and more artisan type approach than most of the other carbon bike makers. His customer support and warranty service seem as good as or better than anyones.
I have never understood all the hype about Parlee frames. He uses carbon lugs and tubes and the construction of his frames is basic plug and play like many other carbon bike makers out there using simple lugs. He certainly is not going through the trouble of building and fabricating hand crafted supporting gussets like Calfee does. It seems like just because he's relatively new, relatively expensive and relatively rare people associate this with high quality. Just my opinion, but I'd take a hand crafted Calfee over a simple plug and play Parlee any day of the week. Now I see that Steelman is chasing the carbon fiber revolution and is offering the same type of simple plug and play carbon framesets as Parlee although he is using Dedacciai speced lugs and carbon tubes.
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OnYerLeft
new member
Reged: 06/07/04
Posts: 35
Loc: CA, USA
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i tend to agree. however, in reading the reviews on parlees people seem to rave about parlee's ride quality. bob parlee must be doing something right. i just haven't ridden one so i can't comment on it. i believe that centaur1 just got a crumpton (carbon) and he seems to love it. since he also owns a calfee i would be interested on his take regarding the differences and similarities of each bike's ride quality. same with the others who have tried other carbon bikes. just curious.
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flythebike
captain
Reged: 08/26/04
Posts: 272
Loc: N. Virginia, USA
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I have also owned two Look frames in the early-mid 90s. A one piece KG196 that was the ONCE team bike aroung 1992 and a derivation of which is still one of the fastest TT (esp. Track) bikes. It was overbuilt, too heavy, but very comfortable with terriffic manners and feel. But it was a lousy choice for racing crits and was too heavy for hills. But then again at the time most Euro pro road bikes were 6 lbs frame and fork so it was built with that mindset. A few years later I had another KG model, but it was bonded with aluminum lugs. It was very nicely done, the tubes although different from Calfee were very nice. But I rode the bike a lot and after a few years it seemed to get flexy, probably due to fatigue on the part of the aluminum lugs. Until then I was very pleased with the bike, and I won a field sprint in a Cat 3 circuit race with it at the height of my powers. It was stolen in Paris...The first Look I sold to get money to go on that trip, and at the time was just using it for the odd TT. Currently they make one of the lightest carbon frames available, and a full-carbon fork. I'm sure it is on par with a Calfee, although I probably wouldn't use one because the geometry would probably be a more traditional road (slack) geometry. But I'd choose their fork over the Alpha Q if I were building up my bike now, depending on price and the buy American ethic, how that all factored together.
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