You Can Make Carbon Fiber Bikes, Repair it; or make Bamboo Bikes

Yes Pinoys can Afford Carbon Fiber Bikes

                                        The Frame Alone Costs Over a 100t - Very Expensive

                                                       Fuji Carbon Frame About 75T

                                              Made in Italy, Colnago Frame Also Expensive

I bike and the most expensive bikes are made of titanium of carbon fiber. The expensive ones are made in Italy and Europe (actually assembled in Taiwan) and USA (also made in Taiwan and China) The carbon frames can set you back by 30t up when you buy locally. It is more expensive when you buy from abroad.

Carbon fiber is said to be 5x stronger than steel and maybe 5x lighter.  But it suffers from one weakness -  it is brittle and breaks.  Most formula cars, wing planes are made of carbon fiber.  Carbon fiber, like titanium is a space age material.

There are also some urban myths that tell us that carbon frames are unrepairable; I read from the bloglist, from the Google Reader that it IS REPAIRABLE. The guy who can do the fiberglass stuff for motorbikes, can do the carbon fiber repair.


As I was updating my bloglist/blogroll, I came across 3 important ideas: making bamboo bikes, making carbon fiber bike frame and repairing carbon fiber bike frame. Some observation:

The Bamboo bike frame - is not solely made from bamboo but from resins and carbon fiber.

Making the carbon fiber bike frame - the most difficult part is making the mold; but the process is just like making a fiber glass part. The only difference is instead of fiberglass, the material is carbon fiber. But the epoxy, the sanding process is the same. The fiberglass guys can make the carbon bike frame. But he must know where to put the metal parts: the insert for BB, the headpost, the deraillleur hanger. etc, the water bottle boss, the inserts for the cables etc.

The repair is just like the repair of fiberglass.

Here are the links

carbonframerepair.

making a carbon fiber bike frame

making a bamboo bike frame





"New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."