The third bike is to be a sleek and fast road bike named The Panda!
Here’s how she’s looking geometry wise (this is still a work in progress):
She’ll be running the beautiful Campagnolo Veloce groupset and Ritchey Pro components all round. Everything’s going to be stealth black except the bamboo on the frame.
I’m going to aim to get the frame weight around the 2kg mark, which with all the bling on should lead to around a 9.5kg bike. Lovely!
looking great!
ever thought about a more traditional horizontal top tube, to go with the nature of bamboo?
Yep TK, I’ve been toying with that idea for this frame. The problem is that it makes the frame heavier (longer seat stays, top tube and seat tube), as well as bendier, which isn’t ideal for a road bike. The aim for this bike is to make it as light and stiff as possible, hence the more modern geometry.
If I build a more casual bike for someone I’ll try to get a flat top tube happening. How’s that? 🙂
I like this geometry, it will be a very nice and “easy handling” bike.
It can be lighter than 2 kg. Here is my frame in very similar size with 1,64 kg, it is stiff enough:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/PxU1wSj2Pgsqo-A_9Mj1Eg?feat=directlink
Later I changed the chainstay to this bended one:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rYFoy0cxsBu4Le2BiZLknw?feat=directlink
The weight increased to 1,71 kg.
That second frame is gorgeous Gabor! How did you go about bending the chain-stays?
Thanks.
You can find a lot of youtube videos about bending the bamboo.
The technique is easy (fill with sand, heat the area you want to bend and use sufficient force to bend), but I cracked several pieces at the first time… Finally I learned how to do it.
ahh I see. perfectly reasonable. I do like the look of a flat top bar though 😉