With the initial press photos of the Argonaut Cycles carbon frame being a bit on the dark side, I made a point to see the bike in person while at Interbike. While not officially on display, I managed to sneak in a visit with Ben Farver of Argonaut to get a little hands on action with the new bike.
Break on through to the other side for the full set of images, and a few more details on this new, bladder molded, custom carbon frame.
Several framesets have been produced now, and frame weights are coming in around 850 to 900 grams. Two versions are available, depending on the type of drive train you plan on using. The wiring for electronic drivetrains is run internally through the downtube, but externally on the rear chain stay. For reliability, Argonaut was very hesitant to drill a 7mm hole into chain stay. You see, these frames have a true lifetime warrantee. Mechanical drivetrain cables and housings get full external routing.
Want to know how the bike rides? Yeah, so do we. Stay tuned as we have one set to arrive later this year for review. Plus, we will be visiting the factory where these Argonaut frames are produced very soon, and sharing our experience with all of you wonderful readers.
Argonaut makes the seat mast cap from their own mold. It comes in at around 100g, and uses Enve Composites internals.
What’s that hiding in there? Why it’s a Chris King Press Fit BB30 prototype that Argonaut is helping to develop and test.
Fourteen pounds, 11 ounces. Not to shabby for a parts build that, while is high end, doesn’t result to weight weenie antics to shed grams. Turn this frameset over to the folks at FairWheel, along with an unlimited budget, and I am sure the resulting weight could get much, much lower.
