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HIA Velo factory tour: This is how they make carbon frames, start to finish

HIA Velo Factory Tour shows how carbon fiber bicycles are made to create their Allied Cycle Works carbon road bikes
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When we visited HIA Velo, they opened the doors and gave us full access to their factory. Nothing was off limits, carte blanche to shoot whatever we wanted. Our host Sam Pickman walked us through the entire process of building their Allied Cycle Works carbon fiber road bikes, from start to finish. In this video, you’ll see how the Alfa bike goes from sheets of pre-preg carbon all the way to a finished bike. Enjoy!

Check out our review of their latest addition, the Alfa All Road gravel bike, here. For more info on the bikes, check out past coverage here and here. And watch their own promo video here.

AlliedCycleWorks.com

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Vector
Vector
6 years ago

Cool video and props to an American company but…”aahh, umm, aaaahhh umm, ahhhh but umm, ahh”

Hey
Hey
6 years ago

I spy Life Cruise

mudrock
mudrock
6 years ago

Has HIA considered a kevlar ply on the underside of the downtube? I’m still not sold on the impact resistance of carbon.

Timmy
Timmy
6 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

If you ever get the chance to attack a good modern carbon bike with a hammer, do it. Spoiler: It takes a lot of force and multiple hits to damage more than the clearcoat, much more than an alloy or high-end steel bike. The outside layers are always laid up to be stronger and the days of easily damaged carbon are long gone.

AZBikeFreak
AZBikeFreak
6 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

I’ve done my own real world testing on Arizona’s brutal rock infested trails. I’ve smashed my down tube on boulder sized super abrasive granite chunks. I am a true believer that the impact resistance of carbon is superior to aluminum and steel. I wouldn’t have any concerns about it on road and gravel frames.

If you don’t believe me, what this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QNRpSkTGoA

Eric
Eric
6 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

This is why they use Innegra.

But these are road bikes. If you are regular,surly bashing your downtube, that seems like rider error.

Nick Hand
Nick Hand
6 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

You should really do some real research on Carbon. It is perfect for bikes and the frames they make now are made to withstand anything you can throw at it. Will they still break? Yeah, but you would probably break a metal frame too. I have seen reps take bats to carbon wheels and I have seen a video of Giant engineers taking hammers to their frames, neither showed any sign of damage. Carbon is also extremely fixable. There is nothing you can’t fix in carbon, it all comes down to how much you want to spend to fix it. ( I am the owner of a carbon bike repair business)

Brad Comis (@BradComis)
Reply to  Nick Hand

Just because you can’t see any damage doesn’t mean there isn’t delamination under the surface. That’s the tough thing with carbon- it is hard to see when it is damaged.

Padrote
Padrote
6 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

impact protection on a road bike? ok…

wipepower
6 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

The ultimate tensile stress of Kevlar is not that much higher than Carbon Fiber, maybe 10% if I remember right. So not much help. With Just one thin layers of it, with the stiff cabon behind it, it would not much obsorb any impact before passing on to the carbon underneath. It’ll prob just mean you get some un-noticable damage under the Kevlar……And mainly, Kevlar is a pain in the ass to work with.

Just putting 2 extra layers of cabon in the layup instead on 1 layer of Kevlar would give you more protection and a stiffer frame, and simpler processes, and happier employees(good to have for a labor intensive product).

AK_Ben
AK_Ben
6 years ago

Pretty cool. Really hope they are successful. If I hadn’t bought a No. 22 titanium bike last year, I would have gone for one of these, I think. Truly impressive to see how much labor goes into the process of making a carbon frame.

Technician
Technician
6 years ago

Very informative, thanks for posting this incredible vid!

jake
jake
6 years ago

Great video. makes me much more likely to support Allied with my next bike purchase.

B
B
6 years ago
Reply to  jake

Agreed. Nice to see the process so openly.

glen evans
glen evans
6 years ago

awesome!

Eddy
Eddy
6 years ago

Have those workers wear protective glasses while sanding carbon!

thebrassnipple
6 years ago

Really like the design of the AllRoad with room for 38c tires. Exactly what I was looking for…….except I just rode my Canyon Endurace CF SLX 8.0 Di2 bike yesterday for the first time and the price is WAY less. I just priced as close as I could to the same build in an AllRoad and the bike cost $8,070 with aluminum Zipp Stem and seat post vs the integrated carbon on the Canyon. The Canyon cost me $4,870 shipped.

Really like what these guys are doing but no way am I going to spend $3,200 more.

Patrick
Patrick
6 years ago

He mentions the resin gets really viscous when they pulse the pneumatics. Pretty sure he means really low resin viscosity, otherwise they’d never fully fill out the pre-preg to the mold.

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