I bought a cheapo rear wheel (105 hub, Mavic CXP 22 rim $25) for my wife to use on the trainer and the guy I bought it from had a bunch of other stuff listed for sale. One of the items was a Calfee frame with a broken brake bridge. I told him how I am on my second Calfee and love the brand due to it's
rowing connection. He said that the guy he was going to sell it to backed out. He was asking $100 for it and was desperate to get rid of it because he is moving to LA in a week.I said I think I could fix it as I have experience repairing carbon fiber racing shells and oars and asked what he was going to do. He ended up just giving it to me! Even if I can't fix it, I can salvage the King headset for sure.
It measures ST 60cm CTC by TT 58.5 -which is exactly the same as both of my other Calfees. So I am not sure what is "Custom" about this one. I guess I will send the serial number to Calfee and ask.
Using a razor blade, I scraped away as much of the paint as I could on the brake bridge to try and see how bad and deep the crack is.
I stuck a screwdriver into the brake hole and gently pried. The crack is bad, at least in a rotational way. I couldn't feel any flex when I pressed on it directly towards the hole, or vertically from the top (or bottom) of the bridge, but that rotational torque crack is concerning.
My plan is to continue removing all the paint on the bridge (time for the Dremel) then gently pry the crack open and inject as much resin into the crack as I can. Then I'll clamp it down and let it set overnight. Finally, I will wrap the bridge in carbon and proceed as if I was repairing a teeny little oar. I think I will put a carbon strip along the top and bottom of the bridge, then wrap both sides of the bridge with a second layer or carbon. Does this seem adequate? I have ordered
Predator Cycling's repair kit.
My question for you all is: do you think this will be enough to make the bike safe? Not super worried about cosmetics, just want something safe to ride.
Then I will build it up with stuff I have laying around. It will be a total Franken-build.
I will also sand and touch up all the war wounds on the frame. Probably just with primer black. The paint is pretty rough with lots of chips, some quite large. However, the color is very nice. I wonder what happened to this frame? It was obviously very well loved (look at all the chain slap damage).
Then? Maybe give it to a buddy. Or keep it for visiting friends.