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Road to NAHBS 2015: Calfee Design

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Calfee NAHBS 2015 Carbon Road 1

As the thirtieth anniversary of his first carbon prototype frame approaches, Craig Calfee continues to push the design and process envelope.  Having debuted a tandem-to-solo conversion bike last year, and a new 3D printing process for custom, one-off carbon lugs on their Manta endurance road frames, it will be interesting to see what surprises Calfee has in store for this NAHBS.

BIKERUMOR: What are your main building materials?

Craig: Carbon fiber, bamboo and hemp. And to a lesser extent, titanium and Douglas Fir tree branches.

Calfee NAHBS 2015 Carbon Lug Mold

BIKERUMOR: What’s new with your company since NAHBS last year?

Craig: 3D printed custom molds for Mantas. New integrated Garmin mount on the BarStems, shorter lead times and more in-house custom paint options.

Calfee NAHBS 2015 Carbon Manta Road

BIKERUMOR: Any killer custom bike builds in that time? 

Craig: Yes, lots. They’re all over our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Calfee NAHBS 2015 arbon Lug seat cluster

BIKERUMOR: What were some of your newer inspirations for recent bikes?

Craig: I went to India last September on a bamboo bike building gig and found the decorative arts there to be truly stunning. We had one artist decorate the cargo bike similar to how they decorate their big cargo trucks. We hope he will get wild on the electric bamboo rickshaw! I want to try some fine line painting on the lugs of an “art” bike at some point.

Calfee NAHBS 2015 Carbon dragonfly tandem

BIKERUMOR: What are you building this year that’ll draw a crowd?

Craig: There’s a beautiful Dragonfly Tandem that is coming to the show that will really turn heads. We build some amazing bikes but this one had all of our workers checking it out as the finishing touches were completed.

BIKERUMOR: If you had to build a bike for a Kentucky Derby style race (think short, all out effort on deep, loose dirt), what would you build and why?

Craig: A carbon fatbike tandem. We’re building one now but probably won’t be done for NAHBS. It’s all about the traction!

Calfee NAHBS 2015 Carbon Road 2

BIKERUMOR: Bourbon or beer?

Craig: Draft beer!

CalfeeDesign.com

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brattercakes
brattercakes
9 years ago

Wow, these are beautiful.

Graphic error on the left shifter of the first photo though…

Anthony
Anthony
9 years ago

That’s the 2-d version of the Ultegra shifter

JG
JG
9 years ago

I used to have a Calfee Luna Pro in nude carbon. It was a real head turner and very comfortable. To this day I regret selling it when I went back to grad school.

tom
tom
9 years ago

the crank on that first bike looks photo-shopped.

Ghouse
Ghouse
9 years ago

That bike shot (#1) is very poorly rotoscoped (masked), obviously by someone who has never seen a road bike… nor photoshop. Such a fledgling effort for a superior bike. The last shot with the orange/white/blue frame and components… yes, please.

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