Known for tig welding steel and ti, Carl Strong started playing with carbon three years ago
His first carbon bike is finally ready to go to production. It’s built with tube to tube construction using custom tubes, resins and layups. The frame will be about 850g prior to paint, but extremely durable and race worthy. Check out all the options, features and photos, plus is titanium cyclocross and steel road bikes, after the break…
The frame can be had with ISP or regular seatposts and various head tube and bottom bracket options, including PF30. If you opt for the standard BB, it’ll have a threaded ti insert bonded in. For headsets, the new 44 InSet is preferred, or he’ll bond in ti cups to accept regular HS cups. Otherwise, there’s no metal that’s not necessary, meaning the frame is pretty much full carbon except the dropouts and water bottle cage bosses.
Rear dropouts are 7075 aluminum and replaceable, and they’re made by Tyler at Twenty6 Products who’s close to Strong’s Bozeman, MT, headquarters. Thanks to the collaboration with other small brands, they can be ano’d any color you want to match a headset or whatever.
Vertical and horizontal keys on the chainstay mount and a radially keyed male/female section on the seat stay mount keeps any shear load off the ti bolts. Frame, fork, HS and BB bearings is $4800 with one color or clear coat. Paint would add about 50-200g depending on number of colors, clear coat is about 100g. Lightest coating would be a matte clear like on the Crumptons.
While the new carbon bike was the highlight of his booth, this titanium cyclocross bike gave the eyes something else gorgeous to rest on.
Steel is still real, especially when it’s in shaped Columbus Spirit lightweight tubing and built up sick light.
