jamesdak 

Appears I never shared a full set of pictures for the C4 Air One I picked up from a local seller last summer. It's sort of the Italian version of the original Kestrel bikes. Not sure which company was first off the top of my head.

This was in good shape when I got it, had just been unused for awhile. Basic degrease and service was all I did. Balky rear shifting at first but sorted out with another round of degreasing the drive train. Initial impressions were fairly fast and comfortable yet lacking a lively feel. When I rode it recently it was painful. The stiff frame is not made for an old geezer riding heavy and slow on the saddle as he recovers from a knee replacement.


How I picked it up.

Hardly any change, my pedals and some bottle cages not shown here.

Nice stem!


Different take on a seatpost clamp


Not lot of room for large tires but totally to spec for the era.

Beefy bonded rear dropouts.

jamesdak 

C4... So that's right C.F. bikes have a rep for "exploding" ! LOL!

Campagnolo Goodness




Beefy BB area

Internal cables



One piece design

jamesdak 

georges1

I am curious how does it compare to your former trek OCLV??? Is it a more comfy or a more harsh ride ?

jamesdak 

Well I can say right now that this one and the Trek 5200 I have were uncomfortable on their recent rides where I was moving slow. The Trek Y-Foil I took out Monday was comfortable and the Colnago C40 was freaking out of the world in comfort and great feeling in every aspect of the ride. Hmmmm....maybe I should take the Calfee out today to see how it compares?

I really can't compare to my old Madone 5.9. It's been gone too long and was compared against vintage steel when I decided to let it go.

Wildwood 

When I rode a bunch of carbon frames in the mid 90's, looking to buy - I found that the tube and bonded lug bikes had a better 'ride feel' than any frame with the 'bag and vacuum' manufacturing. [how to spell monoquote?]. Aegis was the heaviest and dead feeling. Trek OCLV was second worst. Kestrel only a bit better. The tube and glue Treks/Spec were whippy. My favorites were Calfee and Look. Did not ride a Colnago or Time as they were waaay beyond my budget.

As always @jamesdak , your desire to ride them all shines thru so beautifully. Lovely bike.

late edit: Not trying to slam anyone's bicycle. Some liked what I disliked. And all has changed since then.

georges1

Some of the worst carbon bikes in terms of comfort for me that I have ridden were the Spécialized Roubaix, Storck Scenario Pro and BH Ultra light.

dddd

My Kestrel 4000 also seems to have a less than inspiring ride quality, and the steering feels weird when using vintage aero rims for unknown reasons.

But I like the Kestrel for the same reason that I like this one, (I feel like asking if it's for sale!).

jamesdak 

Well, I was curious today about steel vs C.F. comfort.....again. So, instead of the Calfee I took out the Coppi with it's oversized tubes, low slung seat stays and all the other aspects of it that make is seem like it should be very stiff and unforgiving.
Nope!! Smooth, fast, and comfortable. I took it easy for the first nine miles then decided to see if I could push it over the 18 mph avg like the C40 did. Had a good run going with two miles left, sitting at 17.8 for the average and the legs feeling strong. Then BAM, afternoon headwinds smacked me in the face. Over the final two miles they just grew stronger and stronger until I was doing about 12 mph as I turned into the house.

This was all the fault of Garmin by the way. My not even 1 year old Varia radar/light decided it just didn't want to turn on and the Edge 530 was showing a critical battery error for it despite the Varia being fully charged. Spent 15 minutes messing around online looking for a solution. If that slowed me down getting out I would have made it home right before the winds kicked in.

I don't know why I keep buying Garmin crap. I've got around 10 speed or cadence sensors of theirs that died with little use also. No one sells quality anymore, it's all consumable and yes I"m an old geezer shouting at the clouds.

martl

there were a few cfk pioneers in the 1990ies doing monocoques - C4, Kestrel, Corima and possibly a few more. These frames allowed the owner to be at the cutting edge of an up-and-coming exciting new technological development, and without suffering from any advantage whatsoever, be it weight, durability or anything else, over a lugged steel frame. Of course no benefit comes without a downside so heavy users may have experienced creaky noises or the occasional loose bb shell.

As for the comfort, as everyone knows, an oversized 7020 Alloy like my 1998 Principia RSL (think Klein, but handwelded in Denmark, presumably by pretty blonde welders) rides much stiffer than my lugged columbus SL Mike Appel, at least until i swap the saddles around.

jamesdak 

Oh, the Corima Puma wasn't it? I forgot about those.

martl

i found a "Tour" special form 1992(?) giving a market overview of bikes/frames. There were in fact a few CFK monocoques available:

Kestrel of course



a prototype by Fraunhofer - if i'm not completely mistaken, the people behind this went od to form Spin of Spin Gato/Intro fame



what would become the Carbonsports Total Eclipse was marketed as "Exclusive bike"



The Checker Pig CPX R8



C4



Corima



and Lotus



A prototype by Cratoni

jamesdak 

Wow, so awesome. I should try to find one of each!

martl

i'll take one of those Lotus thank you very much

you can start with that

Lattz

jamesdak , really cool C4 bike!!
I was waiting if the list of similars escalates to one of my personal favs in this league, Andrea Cinelli's Cinetica Giotto, but if not, I'll post that. This became the "magic unicorn" for me, after never hearing about it, just casually bumping into a sframe for acceptable (but still no cheap) money during staring at ads. Of course my hesitation ended up in a call with the answer "the dude who bought it, picked up an hour ago.
"
There is no exact date mentioned in most sources, but in some articles they say in '86 Andrea, son of Cino decided to build own bikes as he was serious enough, he looked up the - then - one of the most knowledgeable company dealing with CF and aero, Ferrari. Oddly same year when both Kestrel and C4 had the same idea with really similar bikes. (I thought for long years, that C4 is some form of continuation of Andrea's project after it bite the dust, but no. Against all similarities, they independently looked similar. ) Ultimately the story ended not even because the bikes themselves broke (but according to stories, there was no shortage in those either) but the molds were not as durable as they planned which quickly turned the whole circus into a financial disaster. A notable feature is the cockpit, which is often can be found on eBay, and a few years ago they were not even in the horror price range. Stem with adjustable length, and bar with adjustable width.
2 pieces of Tandem pistas were built as well.
Image source: https://premium-cycling.com/

Choke 

I think that can't be any older than 1993. Wasn't that the year that Germany changed to 5 digit postal codes?

martl

you're correct. Fünf ist Trümpf happened 1993 an in fact this special edition Tour dates from 1995! - my bad!

DanseMacabre

Did Corima make that Concorde Razorblade? I think the second generation Razorblade was made by Ciocc, but I could be wrong.

martl

If you mean, does that article/list have the Razorblade as a Corima, it doesnt; the list is alphabetical and the Corima section contains just one bike. The Razorblade is listed as Concorde.
If you mean was Corima the OEM for what was sold as Concorde Razorblade - i have no idea. If that model was offered by different brands, it may have been third party produced (Many of those were, as a matter of fact)?
Doubt it was Corima because they sold under their own brand, and the Concorde is not a monocoque,

Millstone

Checker Pig? I've had a snowboard built by them. Wasnt too bad, even :-)
Although I am/were more of a skier...

martl

i always thought that name was a rather sad attempt by a german company to come up with a cool american sounding brand name.. Never thought they would have sold internationally

Lattz

interesting that the newspaper simply mirrored the image most likely to show the bike left-to-right, not to risk the mandatory "why the NDS pic?" question