Carbon fiber history silliness

[dpk501]

For those of us old enough to remember....

When carbon bikes came out Kestrel was the gold standard. Loved that EMS frame. Then Trek came out with the OCLV 5200 frames.

Does anyone recall the silliness of of how the reviewers or editors used to make such a big deal that the seat tube of the OCLV was placed slightly ahead of the bottom bracket shell and that made it an inferior frame?

I forgot what their reasoning was so I thought I'd reach out to see who remembers this.

[ultraman6970]

Well exxon whatever had carbon frames before kestrel and I believe anybody else.

Kestrel kind'a mastered what is monocoque construction because pretty much everybody was using aluminum lugs with carbon tubes.

[LesMiner]

Kestrel kind'a mastered what is monocoque construction because pretty much everybody was using aluminum lugs with carbon tubes.

I had a TREK with carbon main tubes with aluminum rear triangle and fork. Just the opposite these days.

[dpk501]

I had a TREK with carbon main tubes with aluminum rear triangle and fork. Just the opposite these days.

They TREK 2300? purple lugs?

[MadRocketSci]

I remember this...i had a 2001 nude 5200, was my first real road bike, having been driven out of mtn biking in the bay area by poison oak. I was fit-kitted up by the lbs and returned many times complaining of neck/back issues. One of the problems was that the fit kit guy put me on a 9cm stem with the frame, a 56. I think the fit kit probably said i'd be ok on a 56, but this was effectively a 57.5 TT bike with a very short head tube, exactly for the reason you mention. The bb was behind the seat tube, effectively giving it a 74.5 degree STA, which then made the reach about 1.5 cm too long, unbeknownst to me.

I eventually gave up with the lbs (a trek shop) and headed to the old school classic rendezvous type place in the area, Shaw's cycles. There Terry Shaw got me fit better on the 5200 by trying to rotate me backward around the bb, but also putting a 10cm -17 deg stem flipped over to get me as high a front end as possible. This is probably when i started reading the old serotta/calfee phorums, btw, and getting ideas from dr. douglas brooks on fit. Anyway, I ended up getting myself a true 56 73 STA/73.5 HTA serotta atlanta frame off ebay, built it up at shaw's, and experienced pain free balanced handling bliss thereafter.

So yeah, that bb/st thing jacked up the fit, at least for me.....especially since the damn geo chart showed a STA around 73 for the M (56)....

[pcb]

Can't help with the seat tube positioning kerfluffle, but I can say that my first ride on my brand-new 5200, with mis-adjusted fder, resulted in a chain jam that sawed through several layers of carbon right at the bb/chstay junction. That was just before Trek added the adhesive-backed chstay guard and anti-jam washer (between the bb shell and fixed cup).

Kinda blew my mind that a front mis-shift, slowly JRA in a parking lot, would require a frame replacement...

For those of us old enough to remember....

...Trek came out with the OCLV 5200 frames.

Does anyone recall the silliness of of how the reviewers or editors used to make such a big deal that the seat tube of the OCLV was placed slightly ahead of the bottom bracket shell and that made it an inferior frame?

I forgot what their reasoning was so I thought I'd reach out to see who remembers this.

[El Chaba]

LOTS of OCLV's cracked at the BB as I recall....

[merlinmurph]

I remember my LBS stripping down OCLV bikes, putting the frames on an alignment table, and laughing at how badly aligned they were.

[biker72]

They TREK 2300? purple lugs?

Mine looked like this one.
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/HgAAAOxyTMdTNFpV/$_57.JPG

[bluesea]

I remember my LBS stripping down OCLV bikes, putting the frames on an alignment table, and laughing at how badly aligned they were.


The real silliness is remembering my LBS *had* and alignment table.

[wasfast]

Well exxon whatever had carbon frames before kestrel and I believe anybody else.

Exxon Graftek. I worked with a guy that was one of the builders. They got decent visibility by sponsoring the National Team in 1976 or so.

Seems you needed a mega corporation name to make exotic frame materials back then like Teledyne Titan titanium frames.

[bewheels]

Early Treks were actually made in northern Maine...

http://aegisbicycles.com/about.html

[Admiral Ackbar]

i have one of those treks made by aegis, quite a nice bike to ride - albeit not very forgiving

[eippo1]

I had no idea that Ageis was still around. I remember when they and Softride were the bees knees in triathlons.

[Admiral Ackbar]

I'm pretty sure they went out of business a few years ago.

[Bob Ross]

I'm pretty sure they went out of business a few years ago.

As I recall they did, but then they came back...and then they went out of business again.

[OtayBW]

This SCi 200 (now gone) replaced my purple and carbon Trek 2300 back in the day. Pretty good rides!

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j42/zelmo_2006/0001.jpg (http://s77.photobucket.com/user/zelmo_2006/media/0001.jpg.html)

[Mike Lopez]

When I was in high school in the '70s zipping around on my Windsor Pro I longed for one of these...

Dick Kantner, who I still see occasionally, was a brilliant cold war era engineer and pioneer in the composites industry. After having a celebrated career in aerospace R&D (think SR-71 radomes & vert stabilizers among other accomplishments) he founded CDC with the intention of bringing carbon composites to the masses with items such as sports racquets, golf shafts, fly rods, and bikes etc.

I know Dick because he was a colleague of my father and many of the other San Diego composites pioneers who I grew up working for/with in various labs, machine shops and composite facilities in the mid '70s through the '80s.

I was very fortunate to have had this group of unique gentlemen take me under their collective wings and provide me with multi discipline apprenticeships in the years before, during, and after college. The education these men gave me was priceless and I attribute my success in the composites industry as a result of their caring efforts.

This bike served as inspiration for my first frames which were the prototypes of the original carbon Stumpjumpers and many years later the Meivici and now the new Holland HC which debuted at NAHBS this year.

I'm sure there were other parallel efforts in the early '70s but Dick's frames and the Exxon frames were the first I was aware of and I was paying attention at the time.

Sorry for the crummy photos. I'm an enginurd, not a photographer... (This frame is a 24" wheeled midget racer Dick built for his daughter)

The data sheets are courtesy of Rob Roberson who is a local framebuilder who worked for Frank Appel. Frank owned a bike shop and provided cycling specific support to Dick during these times.

Enjoy.

[93legendti]

In the early 1990's I dated a woman whose father was the head of the Corps of Engineers. Her parents had a vacation home in Northern Michigan and, when we went to visit them, I took my Trek 5200 with me. Her father got a real kick out of my carbon bike and told me they had been "working with carbon" for years. Nothing specific unfortunately...my girlfriend claimed he would disappear for periods of time and they wouldn't tell her where he went...

[evo111@comcast.net]

When I was in high school in the '70s zipping around on my Windsor Pro I longed for one of these...

Dick Kantner, who I still see occasionally, was a brilliant cold war era engineer and pioneer in the composites industry. After having a celebrated career in aerospace R&D (think SR-71 radomes & vert stabilizers among other accomplishments) he founded CDC with the intention of bringing carbon composites to the masses with items such as sports racquets, golf shafts, fly rods, and bikes etc.

I know Dick because he was a colleague of my father and many of the other San Diego composites pioneers who I grew up working for/with in various labs, machine shops and composite facilities in the mid '70s through the '80s.

I was very fortunate to have had this group of unique gentlemen take me under their collective wings and provide me with multi discipline apprenticeships in the years before, during, and after college. The education these men gave me was priceless and I attribute my success in the composites industry as a result of their caring efforts.

This bike served as inspiration for my first frames which were the prototypes of the original carbon Stumpjumpers and many years later the Meivici and now the new Holland HC which debuted at NAHBS this year.

I'm sure there were other parallel efforts in the early '70s but Dick's frames and the Exxon frames were the first I was aware of and I was paying attention at the time.

Sorry for the crummy photos. I'm an enginurd, not a photographer... (This frame is a 24" wheeled midget racer Dick built for his daughter)

The data sheets are courtesy of Rob Roberson who is a local framebuilder who worked for Frank Appel. Frank owned a bike shop and provided cycling specific support to Dick during these times.

Enjoy.

Thanks for the interesting data and info. If you see Dick Kantner give him props for designing and building the bikes.

Refurbished this frame and all built up.

[dpk501]

This SCi 200 (now gone) replaced my purple and carbon Trek 2300 back in the day. Pretty good rides!

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j42/zelmo_2006/0001.jpg (http://s77.photobucket.com/user/zelmo_2006/media/0001.jpg.html)

I wanted one of these so badly when I was a kid...

[nicrump]

Thanks for sharing that Mike.

1987, full carbon. Mr Calfee

http://brimages.bikeboardmedia.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Calfee-Factory-Tour-first-carbon-fork-stem01.jpg

[Charles M]

When I was in high school in the '70s zipping around on my Windsor Pro I longed for one of these...

Dick Kantner, who I still see occasionally, was a brilliant cold war era engineer and pioneer in the composites industry. After having a celebrated career in aerospace R&D (think SR-71 radomes & vert stabilizers among other accomplishments) he founded CDC with the intention of bringing carbon composites to the masses with items such as sports racquets, golf shafts, fly rods, and bikes etc.

I know Dick because he was a colleague of my father and many of the other San Diego composites pioneers who I grew up working for/with in various labs, machine shops and composite facilities in the mid '70s through the '80s.

I was very fortunate to have had this group of unique gentlemen take me under their collective wings and provide me with multi discipline apprenticeships in the years before, during, and after college. The education these men gave me was priceless and I attribute my success in the composites industry as a result of their caring efforts.

This bike served as inspiration for my first frames which were the prototypes of the original carbon Stumpjumpers and many years later the Meivici and now the new Holland HC which debuted at NAHBS this year.

I'm sure there were other parallel efforts in the early '70s but Dick's frames and the Exxon frames were the first I was aware of and I was paying attention at the time.

Sorry for the crummy photos. I'm an enginurd, not a photographer... (This frame is a 24" wheeled midget racer Dick built for his daughter)

The data sheets are courtesy of Rob Roberson who is a local framebuilder who worked for Frank Appel. Frank owned a bike shop and provided cycling specific support to Dick during these times.

Enjoy.



This is fantastic!

[dpk501]

You guys have beautiful old carbon pics!

If I can only find a TVT in team z livery...

[ultraman6970]

Probably you have more chances to find a grafftek :)

I had a full set of lugs and drop outs moving around a couple of years ago.