Calfee is a very interesting brand. For some, it immediately conjures images of bamboo bikes. Others, high end lugged carbon bikes. And then there’s the ultralight molded carbon fiber tandem bikes always on display at NAHBS.
Superficially, it’d be easy to just say Calfee makes some really nice, really interesting bikes. That would only scratch the surface of what they do at their La Selva Beach, California facility. The building itself is fairly massive, and it was rebuilt to resemble its original function as a tank factory. Which is why they have a 5 ton sliding lift in the middle. It comes in handy for moving around pallets and their flying gyrocopter.
Our tour will be broken up into three parts because, well, there’s just so much to see. We’ll touch on that ‘copter separately, along with all the various bikes we saw while there. Part One will show you how they make their frames, components, tooling and everything else…
MAKING THEIR OWN PARTS
Really, every bike has its start here. They machine and make every jig fixture, mold, mandrel and piece of tooling used to make the frames in house. The only part they don’t make themselves are the the tubes, which are crafted by ENVE Composites…so it’s still all US made.
Alloy bottom bracket inserts are cut and grooved in house. These monsters are for the new Manta endurance road bike we saw in prototype form before Sea Otter.
Molds and mandrels are made here, too. Lots of them, one for every joint of every model in every frame size. They’re toying with the idea of 3D printing molds for random angles on “non conforming” geometries.
Bottom bracket molds on the left, headtube and seat/top tube clusters on the right.
These are the mandrels for forming the bottom brackets, all sized for different frame sizes. The top right ones are for the Tetra and Dragonfly, the larger ones in the middle are for the Manta’s ZED2 crankset, the slightly smaller ones are for the headtube. There are also mandrels for the top tube…basically everything they need to create the parts for each frame. All are machined in house.
The jigs have a million holes drilled in them, each one positioned to hold different molds.
Simple templates are labeled for each model/size and let them know which holes to bolt a particular piece into.
These are the molds that form the Manta’s bottom bracket/chainstay assembly. The finished product is shown further down, but basically the tubes are wet laid into a lugged BB shell with molded chainstay yoke, then the slightly phallic mandrel on the left is slid between the chainstays and the BB plugs are threaded in and the whole assembly is tightened down so it can cure.
Sheets of woven carbon are laid up in a pattern then compressed to form brake bridges…
…water bottle boss mounts…
…and lugs.
Lots of lugs. The lugs are created around metal mandrels, and it takes about 10 hours to create a set of lugs. During assembly, the carbon frame tubes bonded in.
The Manta uses a quasi one-piece chainstay bottom bracket assembly. It uses the lugged BB shell of their Dragonfly bikes with the chainstays laid into a wet layup with a metal mandrel between them to form the chainstay yoke (see prior images). The latter is the same process used in their non-lugged Tetra platform, so it’s a blend of methods learned from everything they’ve done thus far. The result is a smooth aesthetic that’s not quite monocoque, not quite lugged. They use external lugs because the tube wall thickness of the Manta and Dragonfly are too thin to use standard compression molding, hence the lugged or quasi-lugged construction.
FRAME CONSTRUCTION
UD tubes are made for them by ENVE. These are sample tubes for the new Manta, which was unnamed when we were there. It’ll be available in Pro, Adventure and CX versions. Tubes are about the only part they don’t make in house. They prefer to keep it all in house because it lets them “say yes to everything” with regards to custom builds, says Michael Moore, head sales guy at Calfee.
They use rolls of dry (not pre-preg) woven carbon fiber (3K, 6K and 12K) to create the joints and lugs of the bikes as well as carbon fiber frame repair. They have patterns for each lug and size and cut shapes. Resin, which is a plant-based eco-resin, is measured out. Fabric dragged through the resin and laid around a mold. The process is called wet layup, and it’s messy. It’s all put into a static metal die that’s bolted together to squeeze it all around the mandrel to squeeze layers together and excess resin out.
This is 50,000 strand 1/2″ ribbon of carbon tow. Here’s how it’s used:
On their Tetra frames, tubes are wrapped in tow to form the joints. The plastic wrap is just to protect the tube from aesthetic damage.
From here, it gets bound in nylon to compress it and undergoes a low temp cure. This is shown already compressed and cured and the nylon had just been removed. It’s now moving on to power trim, which means power sanding. After that, it’s hand sanded to the appropriate finish. Note the metal rod wrapped in – it’ll be removed to form a cable pathway.
The pic on the left shows a half-finished project, possibly part of a repair on the chainstays.
They also do contract work. This is the main beam for a Volae recumbent.
The wrapped junctions after rough sanding.
A finished frame, ready for final prep.
Closeup of the integrated cable stops – pretty clean!
Remember those molded water bottle mounts? The pieces are cut into small circles, then bonded onto the frame (right). Cable stops are placed in the same fashion. The eliminates rivets or holes in the frame, which keeps the tubes lighter and without any potential stress points.
From there, things move onto paint. And they do some pretty amazing work:
Looks like candy!
The Dragonfly is their lugged bike format.
CARBON FIBER BICYCLE REPAIR
Moore says they do around 2,000 carbon repairs per year, which accounts for the bulk of the units moving through their warehouse. In terms of business, new bikes are the driving force.
A couple of repairs toward the end of the process.
Others sit and cure.
BAMBOO & WOOD BICYCLES
Bamboosero is one of Craig Calfee’s projects that teaches folks in economically struggling areas to build bicycles both for themselves and for others. These finished frames are awaiting final inspection and delivery.
Check out the cargo version with rear fender and carbon fiber sections in the foreground!
Another pet project going on is a DIY wood bike kit. When I made the visit, it was pretty early in the process. They’re shooting stop motion video of the entire assembly process and Moore says the video (and bike) is close to completion.
The wood tubes are hollowed out to save weight. It’s not uncommon to do so, we saw this on other bikes at NAHBS, too.
Some of the tools you’ll need if you want to build your own wood bike.
Part of the job means testing new materials. These are two different bamboo “tubes” under consideration.
ELECTRONICS & OTHER THINGS
Calfee’s been making their own internal Di2 battery kits pretty much since Di2 came out. With Shimano now offering their own kit, Moore says they’ll likely scale back production.
We’re betting they’ll simply come up with something else.
Here’s an early version of their integrated bar stem with hidden electronics and such. Check out the finished version in this post…it’s even bigger!
This is a custom spec Wound Up fork for their adventure platform, and they’ll sell it separately, too. Retail starts at $600 and can be had with rim or disc brake mounts. This one’s a rim brake version, the long reach brake mount bolt hole is a bit hard to see on the dark crown. It’s spec’d with a 380mm axle to crown height, splitting the difference between road and ‘cross.
Stay tuned for Part Two: The Bikes and Part Three: The Gyrocopter soon!
