F100

The F100 frame is made at a factory that also made one of the best alloy frames in the world. That brand sent engineers to the factory for 6 months to help the factory develop state of the art manufacturing processes that are the best currently available anywhere.

The 7000 series alloy (aluminum alloy) tubing is hydroformed. Hydroforming is a somewhat recent development in bicycle tubing. It used high pressure oils to mold the tubing so that the resultant form can be whatever the designer wants. This is vastly different than the old double or single butted tubing of only a few years ago. This allows us to make frames that are both vertically compliant and laterally stiff.

After the tubing is engineered, the most important part of frame building (outside of proper fixturing to keep everything straight) is having the best welders. Good welding does a few things. Properly laying down a good welding bead heats the tubes less and the lower heat that is used means the metals deform less and lose less of their natural characteristics make a stronger frame. The average welder has at the factory I use has been welding frames for 10 years.

Most alloy frames in Taiwan (even for high end bikes) are subcontracted out of the factory where no quality control is exercised. We could save a significant amount of money by using subcontracted frames but feel only the best is what our customers want.

The weight of the frame is about 1380 grams – which is pretty light for an alloy frame. That, combined with our normally light wheels equate into complete bikes generally in the 16-18 pound range. Bike weight is critical for performance. Most of the actual performance advantages you get as you pay more and more for bikes is solely focused on reducing bike weight. Buying the lightest bike for the least amount of money should be one of your key requirements.

One note about bike geometry. There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about bike geometry. Back in the old “steel days” pro riders all had custom frames. Why? Because the high end builders made them one at a time anyway and steel had many more weight and performance problems than current materials do so custom made some sense. As soon as the pros started riding carbon frames it because the rare exception rather than the norm to have custom frames. Many Pro Tour teams all ride stock frames. There is no need for custom unless you are a very unusual size.

Bike fit is based on your three contact points – the pedals, saddle, and handlebars. The saddle position is dictated by the pedal position, and the handlebar position is based more on how you want to ride and how flexible you are. You can read more on this on the bike fit page. What you need to know is that the angles of the frame tubes, within reason, mean nothing as long as you can fit the three contact points comfortably.

We have been building bicycle wheels for about 10 years and have had lots and lots of favorable reviews on our wheels but the bikes have a higher percentage of customer satisfaction than our wheels.

Sales pitches for the complete bikes ………..

Most high end bikes come with low end wheels or if they come with higher end wheels you pay an enormous premium for the. Normally $300 - $500 or more for wheels in the 1500-1600 gram range. The stock wheels are the 1750 gram M28 Aero wheels but it you want to upgrade to the R28 XSL wheels (1500 gram range) it’s only about $50. Bam, you have just knocked off 250 grams of rotating weight for about $50. That will make a huge difference in performance of the bicycle. Much more than spending hundreds of dollars on component upgrades.

In addition, rather than trying to confuse you on component selection, I offer a handy price and weight calculator that gives you real information you can use in selecting the various components of the bike. It tells you exactly what you are getting for your money. Many high end bike company’s web sites don’t even include weights with their bike models (because they are heavy).

Finally, no one that I am aware of, offers the level of customization at anywhere near the price that I do. All the bikes are completely assembled by Jeff. That’s all he does all day, every day and he’s pretty good at it. The bikes are completely assembled and we disassemble them as little as possible to get them into the biggest box we can ship (without paying huge oversize fees to UPS). We remove the saddle/seat post, front wheel, and front brake caliper from the fork. In addition the handlebars are removed from the stem. Most people take about 45 minutes to assemble them but half of that time is in removing the packing material we ship them in.