Stiffest frame?
I'm currently looking for a Cannondale RT frame (any year) but am finding it very hard to find anywhere that sells the frame only. Or I'd settle for an older model that uses the Shimano Octilink BBs and rim brakes but again, old models seem hard to come buy. I don't want to buy one of the newer complete C'dales becuse I've got most of the stuff I need to build the bike up and would be throwing away the disk brakes, crankset and wheels (although you can never have too many sets of wheels!). Obviously there's used C'dales coming up on cliassifieds all the time but I don't seem to be having much joy there either.
I've ridden a few different tandems including Co-Motion and Trek but find the C'dale the stiffest out of all of them which is why I'm after a C'dale.
I've contacted C'dale but haven't heard anything back from them yet. I suspect they probably get a lot of mail and shouldn't hold my breath.
Faced with this problem, I contacted Craig at Calfee who were very helpful and I'm considering possibly getting one of his frames. And I notice they've dispensed with the lateral stiffener on some of their models which should be an indication of how confident they are with their stiffness.
We race competitively, have a team weight of 374 lbs and so obviously the weight savings of using carbon are attractive. But we can deliver over 3000 Watts between us and so the frame has to be extremely stiff. It's a lot of money wasted if it isn't as stiff as the C'dale.
We could obviously get a solid frame custom built out of steel that would be strong enough but we're would prefer to use a lighter material if posible.
If anyone has ridden a Calfee and a C'dale and believes the Calfee is at least as stiff, or has any other suggestions I'd be very interested to here what you think. Obviously from the above you can tell I'm not interested in a Trek frame or Co-Mo but if you don't feel a Calfee is as stiff as either of these to frames it will tell me what I need to know anyway.
Thanks in advance.