NAHBS 2016 – Calfee upgrades get light, bright & tight; plus a massive bamboo hauler

As usual, Calfee’s collection of eye candy was on point. Starting off with this Dragonfly Adventure bike holding court in ENVE’s booth, they showed off their paint skills by two toning the lugs and accessories, including the integrated fender that comes on ENVE’s GRD fork.

Flash past the break to see beneath the glossy, sparkly surface…

Calfee does all of their paint in house. In fact, they do virtually everything in house, including making their own molds to make their lugs, tubes and more. Check out our factory tour here.

Besides the perfect masking (there are no decals on this bike, it’s all paint and clear coat to get the logos and designs), their ability to color match to components (like that Chris King headset) is impressive.

Starting this spring, all of Calfee’s carbon road bikes will get the option of a 44mm straight head tube and oversized downtube.

It makes the bike about 30% stiffer at the head tube and bottom bracket.

Not shown, the Dragonfly Pro 44 SL, with an emphasis on that new “SL” suffix, will be a new model they start working on in March and will use TeXtreme fabric for the lugs. That’ll save about 150g to 200g off the regular 44 frame shown above. It should end up around 1,000g for a 56. Still gets their 25 year warranty.

Calfee’s show wouldn’t be complete without some manner of super trick integration, and this Dragonfly Adventure bike has not one…not two…but THREE new upgrade options.

The first is this insane, full carbon fiber 70g front rack. That’s versus about a pound (~450g) for a lightweight alloy mini rack.

And there’s no hardware, they mold it directly to a TRP carbon fork. It requires tooling, so for now that’s the only fork it’s available on. Cost TBD.

How strong is it? There’s no load weight restriction, they’ve tested it with 20b loads on rough roads, and Craig Calfee can stand on it.

Firefly water bottle holder with accelerometer based rear lights that make a clear water bottle glow. There’s no on/off switch, they just turn on when they sense motion.

At night, the effect would be far more dramatic. It’s built around an Arundel cage, and the light’s powered by the Di2 battery. Cost TBD.

Lastly, they took a Honjo fender and wrapped the inside with 3K carbon to silence and stiffen it. It’s also stronger, so it won’t dent as easy. Say goodbye to that tinny tink-tink-tink sound over gravel roads!

This bamboo cargo bike is a near duplicate of a bike they built for a customer who does solar panel installation and wanted to get rid of his truck.

For this one, which sounded like it might be sticking around their office, Craig had one very important specification: The front basket had to fit a crate of German beer.

There are three batteries, one for Di2, one for the motor and one backup so you can run lights even when the Bionx e-bike system is recharging or not in use. The tool boxes are removable and lock, and there’s additional locking storage on the top of the center section.

Integrated kickstand keeps it steady when parked.

While they wouldn’t say what the customer’s bike cost, this one would be about $12,000. That includes the Marzocchi DH fork the front basket is attached to.

3D printed horn and accessory buttons, BionX console and other bits are used. The Di2 junction is hidden in the stem riser, which is also 3D printed.

CalfeeDesign.com