NAHBS 2013: Argonaut Shows Kevlar-Reinforced Prototype SL Road Bike Frame

I have to say that I’m feeling as if the “hand-built” in NAHBS will soon become a meaningless artifact. I’m not slamming Argonaut’s product, but if you’ve seen the videos of how they build the frames, there are machines and presses that are more or less indistinguishable from those used in “mass-production.” Go to their video at http://argonautcycles.com/about_argonaut.php and skip to 1:52 to see what I’m talking about.

Yes, there are hands involved in their process, but there are hands involved in just about every production bike out there. Can NAHBS fairly exclude Ridley from showing up next year? Specialized? If you’ve seen videos of how they build their bikes, their process isn’t that different just the scale. Is there a point where scale excludes a manufacturer?

Is the difference that they’re not made in China? What if Chinese entrepreneurs want to show their carbon frames that they’re making in a small factory? Medium factory? Large Factory.

I don’t know the answers and I’m not sure I have a definition that works, but I do think it’s something worth discussing.

“Miklos – 02/25/13 – 1:07pm
I have to say that I’m feeling as if the “hand-built” in NAHBS will soon become a meaningless artifact. I’m not slamming Argonaut’s product, but if you’ve seen the videos of how they build the frames, there are machines and presses that are more or less indistinguishable from those used in “mass-production.” Go to their video at http://argonautcycles.com/about_argonaut.php and skip to 1:52 to see what I’m talking about.”

I think you will find as you up your game in composites you use more advanced production regardless these guys obviously upped their game if your charging 5k for a frame old school just isnt quite there, plus carbon is becoming more mainstream to the little guy that never worked with it before ,and the knowledge of what and how you can do is getting out there

Im more puzzled by what putting the ballistic protection on the inside achieves but hey they said its work in progress

@Miklos – Good post and certainly stirs thinking.

i think the big difference is if you can call the company and you talk to one of maybe three people that work there and those same three people are the ones that will be making YOUR bike. IF is on a slightly larger scale, but you get my drift. sure, the dude has a bigass machine to do some stuff, cnc, autoclave, whatever, but personal, individual work as opposed to one of ten people laying up seatstays and ten other people laying up chainstays and some other people doing downtubes now and top tubes after lunch…

some of you seem to be missing the point. while argonaut may not be wielding a brazing torch, they can tailor the bike to your needs, just like any other custom builder. I would even say they can make a bike more “custom” then traditional bike “welders”. They are physically making the tubes of their bicycles, not just selecting tube set manufactured by other companies (ie Columbus, deda, true temper, ect). by being able to select the number of plies, fiber orientation, placement, modulus, resin, mold shape, argonaut can truly make a bike from the ground up, tuned with any desirable trait you can want. i for one am very impressed with their capabilities.