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Factory Tour: How ENVE is making full custom carbon road bikes in house

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour
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There are definitely some things ENVE wouldn’t let us take photos of. But our factory tour video exposes a lot more about the process they use to make their new custom carbon road and all-road bikes.

Watch, and you’ll get a good sense of how they’ve taken their carbon fiber expertise honed from so many years making high-end rims in house in Ogden, UT, and applied that to making a really killer frame.

What stood out to us is how they’re able to make advanced aero shapes and still do full custom sizing. This isn’t as easy as it seems, and it’s not common. Yes, there are a lot of great custom handmade frame builders out there, but few are using aerodynamic or other complex shapes.

The challenge lies in being able to make those shapes and still offer a wide range of frame sizes, let alone a nearly infinite range of sizes to fit any rider. ENVE’s figured it out, and had the resources to make it happen. Below are a few select photos from the tour to complement the video…

How ENVE road bikes are made

enve custom carbon road bike frame during final over wrap

This is what a raw, finished ENVE road bike frame looks like before any paint or hardware. It’s been bonded and overwrapped, and that’s been cured and dried. But it takes a lot to get to this point.

From the customer’s perspective, it starts with giving them your fit and geometry numbers.  For ENVE, it starts with making the tubes. Yes, they make the tubes before they have your data…

enve custom carbon road bike frame layup at factory

And that’s because all of the tubes are made longer or taller than necessary. They have 2, maybe 3, molds for each junction on the bike, which gets them in the right ballpark for the angles.

Above is a headtube-top tube piece (upside down) wrapped around their proprietary “soft mold” (which we weren’t allowed to photo). This method gives them something that they’re able to force into complex shapes that are firm enough to wrap carbon plies around, yet then still be removed after production. It’s clever, and it’s reusable, but we can’t tell you what it is.

carbon molds for enve custom road bikes

These are the individual tube molds that are used to shape the mandrels that they wrap carbon around.

The reason they can make only a few different parts for any size frame is because once the longer-than-necessary tubes are made, they simply cut off the extra. If you need a short seat tube and head tube, they’ll cut off more. Taller, longer riders’ bikes would have less tube removed. Then it’s all bonded together, overwrapped, and cured into a final frame.

enve custom carbon road bike frame color selection and painted bikes hanging on wall

From there, it’s on to finishing and paint. Above, a couple of bikes are finished in paint and waiting to be moved to assembly. Behind them on the wall are customer builds waiting for paint, with notes to the painter on which colors to use.

enve custom carbon road bike frame paint booth

Before paint, bikes go into this sealed room for any final sanding and touchups to smooth things over. Then they’re into the paint booth…

enve custom carbon road bike frame paint booth

Each bike starts with a glossy clearcoat to prep it for the final paint. After that, they’ll apply one of 38 colors in one of four templates. You can also choose gloss or matte for each color within the templates. Which basically means 10,000+ combinations. Or you can go full custom, like these:

custom painted example of enve road bike for chris king

These bikes were in the stands during our visit. The darker one in the background is for an employee, the middle one’s for a customer, and this green one is for…

custom painted example of enve road bike for chris king

Check the video for a few closeup details on it. Our guess is we’ll see it as a promo bike from Chris King very soon.

comparison of enve road bike stem spacers and headset top caps

The bikes are sold as a “Chassis” including seatmast topper, fork, thru axles, and their full custom one-piece handlebar and stem. That means you get to specify the exact width and stem length you want, and then it’s cut, bonded, and molded into a one-piece unit.

Cables and hoses and wires run internally through the bar, into the stem, and then into the head tube through oversized spacers and/or top cap. Nothing’s visible from the outside, so it’s an incredibly clean look.

Add wheels and it’s a “Rolling Chassis”, or you can spec the drivetrain and order it as a complete bike.

custom painted example of enve road bike and one piece handlebar stem combo

This one’s an employee’s bike with custom paint and a nice example of how detailed they can get.

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

This white bike is another employee’s bike, belonging to the ever-faster-than-us Neil Shirley. Doesn’t even matter that white is literally the heaviest color you could choose, there’s still no way we’ll ever catch him.

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

The ENVE Custom Road has a very aerodynamic front end, with flattened handlebar, hourglass headtube, and a fork crown that blends into the head- and downtubes for smoother air flow. Impartiality aside, it’s gorgeous.

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour
These are the bikes you’re looking for.

Their handlebar allows for the cleanest bar tape wraps we’ve ever seen. Neil says he starts at the middle, right up against the raised section in the center, then wraps outward to the drops.

ENVE’s handlebars use a tapered, rounded conical end with a rubber booth that flaps over the tape, allowing such a wrap.

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

The rest of the bike is fairly normal looking through the BB junction, seat tube and stays.

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

The complete bike includes this custom embossed, carbon rail Selle Italia saddle with the ENVE logo on the nose.

closeup details of finished enve carbon road bike from our factory tour

Most of the actual carbon fiber layup and production method are the same as used to make their wheels. Check out our photo tour from the grand opening of their new HQ to see more photos of that process and the rims. Get all the details on the new bike in our launch coverage.

ENVE.com

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Jason D West
Jason D West
3 years ago

Thats super cool! I wish l was fast (and rich) enough to have one. So white is a heavy paint? Am i understanding that correctly?

JZA
JZA
3 years ago
Reply to  Jason D West

White is typically heavier because more coats need to be applied. You will sometimes see professional teams have different bikes for mountain stages in the tour that have just a clear coat on carbon. In the grand scheme of things it’s not really important IMO

Dylan Sutton
Dylan Sutton
3 years ago
Reply to  Jason D West

White paint is heavy because you need more of it (more layers or thicker layers) to cover up the black carbon of the frame.

Craig
Craig
3 years ago

I wish I could afford one. That’s got to be the cleanest looking carbon frame on the market.

mudrock
mudrock
3 years ago

So, the fact that certain assemblies are pre-molded brings up some questions. You show a pre-assembled head tube-top tube assembly – aren’t they limited to a certain head tube angle with that, or do they have several at different angles? Also with that method, there is no possibility for extra wraps for larger sizes, for stiffness.

But, stands to reason they have that covered.

weiwen
weiwen
3 years ago
Reply to  mudrock

The Cyclingtips coverage said that they can vary the head and seat angles on request. They said that Enve was willing to do seat angles from 71 to 76 degrees, but didn’t give a range for head angles.

Chris
Chris
3 years ago

Cant help but wonder how the ‘bike brands’ that ENVE sell their wheels OE to are going to think about this now that they are becoming a direct competitor in an already overcrowded market? More business for Zipp, Reynolds, DT perhaps???

Brian
Brian
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris

I read an interview with someone at Enve, CEO I think, and they stated that they have been steadily losing OE wheel placement to bike brands in house component brands. Think Specialized and Roval, Trek and Bontrager, Giant and Cadex, Cervelo and Reserve, and the list goes on and on. I think the biggest competitor they are hurting are the other boutique frame builders that may spec Enve parts but that is not near the volume of business they have been losing to the big brands in house components.

Robin
Robin
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris

I really doubt that number of frames that Enve will sell will take any significant fraction of sales from any mass manufacturer/brand. The effect on some manufacturer’s or brand’s sales might not even be measurable above the noise in the data. And given the price of a custom Enve frame, I think only a small group of custom builders might see some effect. The key word there is “might”.

silverlining
silverlining
3 years ago

Ok- A custom Enve frame vs Allied frame. Thoughts?

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
3 years ago
Reply to  silverlining

How does one even compare custom to off the shelf? That’s like asking; custom tailored suit, or Men’s Warehouse? Makes no sense.

Huffagnolo SuperMagna
Huffagnolo SuperMagna
3 years ago
Reply to  silverlining

N+1, no? So it has to be both

gregoryvanthomas
3 years ago
Reply to  silverlining

I’ve built and serviced several Allied frames. They are not well thought out. They are not excellent bikes. They could have been, but what you’re getting is a US frame with a bunch of compromises and a lack of attention to detail.

2pacfan187
3 years ago

Interested. Can you gave any more details?

blahnblahblah
blahnblahblah
3 years ago
Reply to  silverlining

neither, Bastion ftw!

blahnblahblah
blahnblahblah
3 years ago

neither, Bastion ftw

Tom
Tom
3 years ago

sure it’s a nice bike. One definite downside is that unless they have a multitude of tube molds, the 48cm frame and 58 cm frame are getting the same dimension down tube, even if the layup is different. In any case, I doubt they have 8 different down tube molds for different size bikes.

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