Sea Otter 2012: Calfee Carbon Craziness
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Sea Otter 2012: Calfee Carbon Craziness

May 8, 2012

Calfee (www.calfeedesign.com) was early to the carbon fibre game, but has always done things rather differently to the regular smooth, shiny frames of everyone else. Calfee uses a lot of carbon fibre strands to achieve these organic shapes. It’s also not afraid to do odd or left-field stuff like chopping up and integrating a Shimano Di2 system into a mountain bike tandem…

Well, why not? Oh, and it's a 29er too.

 

The 'love it or hate it' look

 

Super thin carbon seatstays

 

Digital shifting, carefully bodged/converted to work on a mountain bike

 

Magura MT-8 brake there, another woven carbon fibre product then.

 

Shimano DuraAce Di2 mech converted with a bigger cage to run over a mountain bike block.

 

One piece bar and stem. In carbon, natch.

 

2x10 chainring setup, plus a timing chain

How about this one? It was made by/for one of Calfee’s employees. It’s a two person tandem that’s steered from the rear seat. The owner’s son rides up front while his dad steers. There are S&S couplings too so that he can one day add a central section with another seat for his daughter.  Bonkers!

 

For tiny control freaks everywhere. Yes, you can sit up front...

 

Sideways Di2 levers

 

Calfee also make stuff in bamboo

 

High tech and organic together

 

More 'love it or hate it' looks

 

No one can hate a coloured clear coat over carbon though!

 

 

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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4 thoughts on “Sea Otter 2012: Calfee Carbon Craziness”

  2. Just when I thought I was happy with my lot. They’ve got to be the best looking bikes I’ve ever seen.

  4. Yeah, that carbon-tortoise shell is awesome… Make it whitish and it’ll look like Mother of Pearl… MOTHER OF CARBON!

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