PedalTrout

After a full day running and adjusting cables on Oct. 30, I finally took the carbon out for a shakeout ride Halloween. Satisfied it supported my weight (!!!), I wanted to slowly stress the frame and stretch the cables with a very light pedal around the town – okay, across the causeway (Which would be an excellent course for a no-holds-barred road kilometer TT…).

A few shots of the recent build

The build commences!

 

Keeping that in mind, what started this whole carbon thing for me was getting those ZIPP 440 wheels (They were sooo light!!) and finding 88bikefun on Ebay as a source for a carbon frame within my budget. As I said in Part 1, there are many different material combinations and quality levels for carbon fiber frames.

Part 2

By William Clarke

My no-name carbon frame arrived as I was out riding the morning of Oct. 5. The first comment from Madeleine was that she couldn't believe the almost-weightless cardboard box contained a bicycle frame.
I was equally surprised at how light the box was, but it didn't take long to begin assessing.
Yes, shipped by EMS from Hong Xing's Pet Products Ltd. in Shen Zhen, China, the carton was a standard corrugated cardboard box sealed with packing tape around all of the seams. It contained no markings (like 'fragile') and gave no clue to its contents. The total weight was marked as 2.9kg with the frame itself supposedly weighing less than half of that total at 1.2kg.