Are you lacking bling? Got a carbon bike, and not sure how to make it lighter or fancier? Well fret no more, because it turns out you can always fit more carbon on a bike, and that’s what Carbocage exist for.
A Carbocage is not a prison made of pasta, nor the feeding pen we put Jason Miles in the night before a race, but a German company making carbon fibre chain guides, amongst other widgets. They caught our eye at Eurobike because of the relatively simple construction method: CNCed flat layers of carbon with spacers.
You can only buy direct from their website at the moment, but on the stand they said they’re currently looking for a UK distributor.
The range they have is expansive – they probably have a guide to fit pretty much any bike.Carbocage supply chainguides to the RRP Downhill Team, who started out with Ghost and now race for Rose Bikes.They also offer 4x…… and smaller, even lighter options.Five gram stem cap anyone?How about a six gram one with a bit of extra detail?Or some fancy carbon jockey wheels? The alloy ones are about €15 each, carbon ones here range from €45, up to €75 with a ceramic bearing.Carbon direct mount spacer sets, that let you raise the stem on a downhill bike by 2.5 – 10mm.Also, super lightweight BB adapters in case your frame doesn’t have ISCG/ISCG 05 tabs.The larger of these carbon DH chainguides will run you €219 and weighs just 148g. They also do slightly cheaper, slightly heavier versions in fibreglass.Not on their website yet, but they also had some CNCed carbon fibre bash rings on display.
David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly.
Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.