ventolin

Any idea what the tubeset was on that machine? SLX?

Dan333SP

Allied continues to build the sexiest carbon frames and paintjobs around-

MoAlpha

More boats for you, philistines.



Herreshoff Buzzards Bay 18

himespau 

I'm pretty sure it's Columbus MXL (or just plain Max, not sure).

Campag4life

If you prefer a clean aesthetic and I do as well and want a race pedigree, I will shill for my new bike, a Cervelo R3. Uber clean lines but with aero cues and the stiffest bike Cervelo has ever produced. Downtube is the largest in the industry per UCI rules and is shaped like a truncated airfoil...what Cervelo coins Squoval shape. It rides 'solid' but not bone jarring and of course as expected with this level of stiffness, any energy into the pedals has a commensurate move forward. Cervelo's all arounder or climbing bike...very light. I believe there will be less focus on aero for aero sake and more sensibility will return to bikes...my belief for '19 and moving forward. Aero bikes are heavy and a bit audacious and cable routing just plain sucks.

Dan333SP

ColonelSanders

They are very nice looking frames.


One question/concern I have with a carbon frame being built up by a boutique builder is, do they have the R&D behind them, to produce a frame that performs as well as those made by bigger companies like Trek, Specialized, Giant etc?


Would be keen to hear people's thoughts on this.

cyclic_eric

Now there's a beautiful boat!

I like the look of the BMC bikes,

Dean V

Really there isn't enough going on with a bike to do a lot of styling with.
Just a nice clean set up and you are basically there.
From then on on they are all much the same.

Sy Reene

Nice bike, but sorry, with that honking huge downtube logo, you can't claim a "clean aesthetic" like the Allied.

Campag4life

Partly the view of the bike. Looking down the graphic is more integrated. To me the bike...tube shape is pure art including how the graphic is integrated. Cervelo owners are a proud lot. 32 grand tour wins. R3 won the Tour de France in '08 and has won the Paris Roubaix. 2018 redesign to me, top in class for all arounder. I like the graphic personally but understand others may not. When you have a pedigree this fine, good to show it off

Allied? Isn't that a moving company?
I like the design of BMC bikes as well.

Dan333SP

TL;DR- Yes, they have adequate R&D and quality control. They bought Guru's assets when that company went bust, moved it to the US, and hired a bunch of really talented engineers. Everything is top notch. I'd trust their carbon process as much or more than anyone in the industry.

Campag4life

Hard to prove but you are likely right. Certainly adequate. But state of the art? That 'may' separate what high end carbon bike you choose.

To me there is a trap of exclusivity. This in fact lines the pockets of many boutique builders. People like different and exclusive. But ubiquity...like Specialized, Trek, Giant, Cervelo comes about by being excellent and even winning races on the world stage. So an unknown or lessor known company is more of a gamble for what is considered 'best'. Best may not even matter or even be difficult to prove. And as discussed aesthetics matter and agree the Allied bikes look very nice.

Bike business is super competitive. I used to seek more exclusive frames to ride. I have changed my paradigm. Now I go with more common name brands with a racing pedigree that have won on the world stage. I also look a bit more at frame weight. A big consideration is design..what BB and seat post for example.

Dan333SP

They win on the world stage because they have enough money to sponsor world tour teams with race winning riders. They don't win because of the bikes. FWIW, Allied sponsored a friend who races professionally for the Hagens Berman women's team in the US. She loved the bike, but they've since switched to Scott because $$$.

Campag4life

Sorry but a patently false narrative often misunderstand and perpetrated. Reality is, Cervelo like many companies...not unlike Specialized and Trek, Cervelo was started by two visionary engineers in a garage in Canada. Difference between the brilliant men that started Cervelo compared to Guru and all the smaller companies is, 'by virtue of the greatness of their design' they elevated onto the grand stage. They built a better mousetrap. That is where the money came from. You have it backward as so many do that defend the 'little guy'. They ALL started as 'little guys'. The smartest little guys turned into big guys. Darwinism is a basic construct of capitalism. I am not saying an Allied isn't a good bike. But Cervelo, Specialized, Trek, Colnago, Pinarello, Giant and a plethora of others have proven their DNA.

I might tell you that I own a horse that can win the Kentucky Derby. I am sure a lot of people believe that. But they don't...lol.

Maelochs

Ummm .... No. "Ubiquity" comes about by being ubiquitous. When you are a high-volume bike producer, people are going to see your brand everywhere because you sell them everywhere.

I mean .... you want ubiquity, Walmart bikes are everywhere. Therefore they must have top-tier design and construction, right? This, too. At the World Tour level, the bikes are all about the same.The riders, the pharmacists, the trainers, the cohesion of the team, the willingness to follow strategy ... the willingness of sponsors to pay for really good riders .... Chris Froome, Brad Wiggins, Alberto Contador .... won because of their own riding ability and because their teams came through. Not because their bikes were better.

Not knocking Cervelo, for sure ... I like the new R5 and one of my Workswells ia a clone of the old R5. But ... better? Quantified how, exactly?

I'd say they built something as good as anything on the market ... and they had good corporate sense, and the desire to keep expanding.

There could be some ex-NASA engineer in Australia who builds boutique CF bikes of the Very highest quality but has no interest in becoming a big name ... (I know there is but i forget his name--the guy who used to make videos about sawing bikes in half.) He is the kind of guy who makes the breakthroughs that imitators call "ground-breaking" when they steal them .... and he is the kind of guy who actually does the intensely laborious work to ensure the highest quality, where the big companies might cut a few corners to increase profit. The difference is 100 percent versus 95 percent---but I'd wager every frame he builds would stand up to the "split down the middle" test better than anything off any major factory's assembly line.

Luckily for me, at my riding level none of that matters.

Maelochs

Not at all true. Not everyone Wants to become a multinational corporation.

In fact, what tends to happen is that the "little guys" get bigger and bigger, reach a point where they need to go public to attract investors, and end up on the sidelines as a board of directors picks management and the guys who once did all the work now have mostly ceremonial positions, while teams of designers draw the bikes and tams of workers in plants wherever build the bikes. The other option is that as the founders get older and the company expands, they founders have to move increasingly into management and do not have time to actually build the bikes.

Some guys want to run huge corporations. Some guys want to build bikes, then want to start a company, then have the opportunity to build huge corporations. Some guys want to build bikes, find a few good people to build with, and are happy being low-volume and high-quality with a lot of hands-on.

One is not better than the other. Trek isn't better than Guru just because it sells more bikes. Walmart would be The best because it sells more bikes than anyone, if that logic were followed.

Being big doesn't ensure quality---neither does being small. Turning a business into a giant corporation doesn't make it better---neither does starting a small business and choosing to keep it small. Business is about meeting the needs or desires of the customer base.

I don't know Allied ... but look at Lynskey. There is a family which has been building titanium bikes for decades. They got a little big, but they haven't tried to go huge. Does that in some way affect the quality of their bikes? Would their bikes be better if they were built in a huge factory in Taiwan? Would they be better if every bike was hand-built one at a time for each customer?

I cannot say ... but I'd take personal attention of massed-produced in a factory staffed with min-wage laborers, given the option. Price is the only reason i don't have people hand-building bikes for me.

Maelochs

Hey ... what happened to pictures of boats and airplanes? What is this thread about?

Campag4life

Supply meet demand. No demand, no need for supply.
Walmart at their price point makes the best bikes in the world for a brick and mortar store chain. Big guys can't compete with Walmart at their price point.
Walmart can't complete with big guys at their price point.
Just to let you know. I am building a custom car in my garage. I am sure it is better than a new Ferrari. Sensible people would likely believe it isn't and they would be right.

Jon T

No
Jon

MoAlpha

Sy Reene

Not sure about this.. it's pretty well know that Walmart bought Ralpha as an entry into this market.

ColonelSanders

Campag4life has articulated my concerns quite well, but I readily admit my concerns could be overblown, as we are almost certainly dealing with a case of diminishing returns, as to what can be done to improve a bike.


Plus I guess one needs a certain level of skill to bring out the best in what the "best" bikes have, and I know I don't have that skill.


When Trek, Specialized, Giant, Cannondale, Cervelo, Colnago etc bring out new models like Campag4life's R3, or Giant's new Defy, Trek's new Madone, Specialized's new Roubaix, Cannondale's CAAD12, pretty much everyone declares them noticeably better than the models they just replaced, so it would appear that having a very large R&D budget pays off.


How do these boutique makers compete on the R&D front, with so much smaller a R&D budget?

TimothyH

The wooden boat is pure sex right there...

Here are two photos of my wooden boat. It is a CLC "Chesapeake 16."






-Tim-

Maelochs

Need better pics of the wooden kayak.