jamesdak 

Still waiting for some Reynolds DV46 wheels to show up but I took it out this morning for a maiden ride. It was plenty fast for a winter ride.

Grabbed some quick shots of it before the ride. I'll do a proper shoot in the spring. Pretty cool ol' ride though and the potential is there for a very fast bike.

This was one of the early Tetra Pro's from the 90's which came with a 70mm Italian BB. There were small chainring clearance issues with these though. I wound up running a Phil Woods BB on this with a longer than normal 108mm spindle to give the clearance needed.

jamesdak 

It started out as this:



This sort of shows how the blue color and carbon fiber comes though the black sections.

jamesdak 

Mods - Move this back where I put it please. This forum was never needed and most of us do not hang out here. This is certainly a C&V bike so let's move it back where I put it.

IAmSam

FWIW I actually would have liked to see the bike...

jamesdak 

So during the ride I noticed the bike was a bit harsh on the roughest sections of chip seal. So I dug into my parts stash, found a Thomson Masterpiece seatpost and used that to mount one of my preferred Fizik Kurve Chameleon saddles. That should help a bit for comfort and dropped the weight of this ol' girl down to an even 18 lbs as in the new picture.




I'll be playing with various wheel/tire combos until I find the sweet spot for this one. It's a Campagnolo Chorus build but with a silver Record crank used because I liked the look better. Cold temps and snowy conditions are keeping me from taking this back out again to try out the saddle setup now. I've also got the stem a bit high right now, that will probably go down a bit more. My lower back was screaming the morning before I took it out so I left it in a higher than normal position.

jamesdak 

Ok, got around to getting the old Reynolds DV46 wheels on it. I'm using some Vittoria's that measure about the largest of the top end 700 x 25's to cushion things up a bit. Also swapped in my usual alloy bottle cages. It picked up a bit of weight now coming in at 18 lbs 5 ozs but hopefully the new wheelset will ride a little nicer. They should be faster if nothing else.

Grabbed one quick shot outside after finishing. As you can see it was just starting to snow and now it's coming down real hard. No test ride on this today.

Wildwood 

Nice. Prefer the carbon wheel look.
I converted mine to 1" threadless fork and headset.
Also had to change original fork (from ~1999), for crack at fork crown. Yellow paint helped expose manufacturing defec early.
Would like to hear your ride impressions after Winter subsides.
I don't consider mine harsh on tubular 25mm, those carbon Reynolds should smooth even chipseal.

for fork reference
1” threaded with Ti steerer from 1999.

Craig C said to replace it, only 1+ year of use from new.

JoeBass

Beautiful! One of my regular rides is an early Tetra Pro with Italian threaded BB, 1" steerer tube and its original Dura-Ace 8 speed group. Gets my vote for the most "steel-like" ride you can get with carbon fiber. It is lugged, after all.

jamesdak 

Updating with some pictures I grabbed this morning before taking it out for 27 miles. Bright sunlight so it really doesn't show the rich shine of the frame.

jamesdak 

Some of the close-ups of the darker areas show how the blue comes through as well as the carbon weave.

Wildwood 

Craig would be pleased.
@jamesdak - this one should pass the 19mph test.

Classtime 

Good looking bike but there are more appropriate forums/sub forums for this. I think I mistakenly clicked on a "caliper" thread that was full of disk brake stuff. I don't like where this is going.

jamesdak 

It's over 25 years old, most of us didn't see the need for the silly early brifter forum, etc, etc. In fact the historical knowledge here helped solve the problem with the chainring clearance since it was a common problem to folks years ago for these older ones with italian BB.

So I guess will just have to agree to disagree.

jamesdak 

Yeah, just not yesterday. Had heavy legs for the two hour ride on the Guv'nor Sunday and then headwinds. So I only avg 18.3 for the 27 miles on this yesterday and I was blasted. Still have the extra "winter insulation" going to that I'm sure is slowing me down, LOL!

Classtime 

Bike Forums Classic &Vintage is now full carbon, Chorus 10 speed Ergo shifting, Ksyrium wheel sets, _________, ____________, (fill in the blank with hydro disk brakes, electronic shifting, dropper posts, and. whatever)

jamesdak 

And Racing Zeros!


I just couldn't resist!

bamboobike4

Do you think the bulges on the R chain stay and DT are to reinforce the mounting of cable guides/stops?
Do you know if there was a Lemond version of this?

DMC707

Pic of LEmond using the same bike 31 years ago --- yep - C&V carbon is a thing

jamesdak 

There was, I had actually been waiting for years to snag a Lemond one with no luck or because they were crazy money.

Somewhere there's a write up of Craig and Greg's process to develop these.

This is not the write up I was thinking of but talks a bit about it.

https://calfeedesign.com/calfee-history/

Wildwood 

Greg won a TdF stage on a CarbonFrames bike build by Craig Calfee. (maybe more than 1?, IDK).

I was never an insider at Calfee and cannot offer a reference for LeMond business agreement.
1. I was only an interested cyclist in Santa Cruz, who (eventually) decided Calfee was among the 2 or 3 best CF frames (in the mid-late 90s). Look and Time were other tops. 'Vacuum bagged' frames at the time (some Trek, Aegis, others) rode overly damped. Frames glued, or glued and screwed (many producers) had early reliability issues and lost my confidence for 200# rider durability on earthquake cracked mountain roads. And I forget which Kestrel I mostly liked after their initial monocoque (sp?) model.

2. became a customer
3. became a fanboy of the company
3a. almost bought a tandem
4. twice drove show bikes from Santa Cruz to Lost Wages for InterOp show.
5. heard stories.

The LeMond affiliation story was pretty simple. Greg and Father were building a business(es) based on his race victories. They entered into many contracts to build LeMond branded bikes. CarbonFrames built some bikes for Team Z and some branded as LeMond. They parted ways, not a lengthy partnership, and to my knowledge, it was outwardly amicable. Aside from any discussions w/ CarbonFrames, Greg's father was known to be a tough businessman and used a large number of vendors in producing LeMond branded while Greg raced - and with Greg afterward.

I also learned about the cost of being a bike frame supplier to a WorldTour team around 1990. As a minimum 30 framesets before the season, possibly 100 framesets over the entire season (many customs) and maybe a full time traveling person during racing season. Too big a commitment for such a small company getting off the ground.

In the Santa Cruz factory, near Natural Bridges State Park and near Hwy1 coastal road north out of town (a glorious ride and/or tough, depending on the winds) I saw a prototype (the first?) Calfee tandem Greg built to ride with his family. He spoke of the joy of riding with his daughter, not knowing I had kids, too. I saw the prototype bamboo bikes in a side area, not a visible priority, during my visits anyway. The first (perhaps 2nd) CF Stiletto recumbent was produced there. I saw a 'tandem' bike being considered for accommodating a highly disabled rider upfront. I saw work on a lightweight CF wheelchair and heard about a desire for lighter weight CF wheels. I was asked if I knew anything about German cycling distribution, as I worked for a UK company with German operations (but not cycling related). Guess that's why I became a fanboy. The man had lots of good ideas. And such a gentleman. Learned later about his component innovations and efforts in Africa, more admiration.

end of reminisce.

bamboobike4

I have tracked one down, the long-term goal is to bring the owner to a realization that a sale is not a bad idea.
He is not a collector, just happens to have one, which he raced in California years ago.
He is waiting on Trek to replace a Project One under warranty.

Perhaps having donated two significant bikes to a C&V-friendly LBS won't hurt (Graftek and Titan).
He knows the appreciation I have for certain bikes, and if the bike were to move, I'm on the short list.

Wildwood 

There were not many Stilettos made.
Could be on a very old Wildwood's future wish list.

Rocket-Sauce 

I am on my second Calfee. Great bikes. Incredible ride.

2003 Dragonfly



2021 Dragonfly 44

jamesdak 

Well.....I have a little update on this bike. I'm starting to call it my "cursed" bike. I just cannot get a clean, fast ride in on it to see what it can really do. The bike seems to be a wind magnet because every time I've had it out I find myself fighting headwinds, EVERYTIME! It's like as soon as the Garmin shows me running an average speed in the 19 mph range the bike calls out to the wind gods and says, "Bring in the gale force headwinds!" I wish I was exaggerating...

Rocket-Sauce 

Headwind in both directions? And I thought it was just me!