Weight Weenies

A little birdy told me that BMC in general have a high failure rate. They were compelled to invest in and develop this Impec bike, not for weight savings or stiffness increase, but for very high manufacturing repeatability. The frames are heavy by WW standards. The tubes are woven, by definition there are no uni layers. Every carbon strand is crimped, so not maximised. The entire build process is automated, though, with no possibility of a mislaid ply here, a ply altogether left out there, etc. The benefit is that BMC will likely get very, very few of these frames back from failure due to manufacturing variances.

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I used to work for a BMC dealer and know mechanics from 2 dealers- the only failures they ever reported were with the Team Machines from 2 gens ago, but even those were few and far between. Would be weird that they'd have such a high rate.

Wcl4 wrote:I think Pharmstrong nailed it with the injection molded lugs. Knowing a little bit about that business, tooling a mold could easily cost $20k+ per customized lug. If you change the angle of the top tube, that would require at least 3 new lugs? (2 for headtube, 1 for seat tube to tt connection?) which amortized over a very limited production run would be prohibitively expensive. I believe Colnago can cut and fit their tubes before they're glued together for their lugs.

I wonder if it would be possible to do what Serotta does with their carbon lugs. Produce something with more material than needed, then adjust the angle by machining away the material so it lines up with specific angles. You'd still likely need a few different lug options, but each one could get you a few degrees of adjustability. Who knows, the shaped tubes might make it harder/prone to failure.


as per this Pez article

BeeSeeBee wrote:I wonder if it would be possible to do what Serotta does with their carbon lugs. Produce something with more material than needed, then adjust the angle by machining away the material so it lines up with specific angles. You'd still likely need a few different lug options, but each one could get you a few degrees of adjustability. Who knows, the shaped tubes might make it harder/prone to failure.

I'm no manufacturing specialist, but I think machining an injection moulded part compromises it?

I've not seen an Impec, but from pictures it looks like the cross section of some of the tubes flair, and change shape around the lug areas, so triming tubes to length would require many possible lug shapes. I think if 3d printing matures we could see full custom Impecs, but who knows they could be printing full frames by then.

That black Impec with Sram is very nice.

Dimitri wrote:mostly built it today. ride it tomorrow

That is sexy as f*ck!

The impec is nice, but I don't see how the business plan for that bike will turn positive. If I were Andy Rihs I would not be happy. Still, better he spends his money on bikes than pouring it down the plughole by 'investing' in something like offshore yachting or a football team...

This could be how most bikes are made in the near future. This bike is beautiful!

I rode with a good buddy of mine (who is also the editor of ROAD magazine) and he was on one of the new Impecs with Shimano 9000 as well. I didn't get a chance to spin on it, but he was definitely putting it through the paces on the some of the more technical downhills on the 100+ mile and 7000' ride we did together. The joints look pretty 'cheap' - very plasticey - like a clamshell plastic or something of a transformer toy! Anyways, they probably work totally fine. The weave on the frame is very different but rather beautiful. It sounded like ride quality was good and stiffness was very high from his opinion.

I also thought the new shiny black on the DA 9000 was a little cheap looking as well. I wish they had done a matte black to match the PRO components...

I have a Black / White Impec frame being built at the moment, courtesy of Kaos Custom Bikes in Caulfield, Melbourne

Minor details to be sorted but main components are :

Groupset / Levers / Derailleurs - Sram Red
Cassette - Sram Red 11-26
Cranks - Zipp
Stem/ Handlebars - Easton Carbon
Brakes - Gravatis SL
Pedals - Look Blade Carbon Ti
Rims - Easton EC90 Aero
Tyres - Vittoria Tubalars
Seat - SMP Selle Forma - Full Carbon

Currently have a BMC Pro Machine with similar spec that weighs 6.3kg (with cages x 2 and computer but no bottles) so I expect similar from the Impec ....

I went ahead and ordered a Wilier Cento1 SR with EPS. So no Impec for me

Rode Impec for first time on Saturday ... sweet !!
Weighs in at 6.38kg with Garmin 500 and empty cage.

pics or it didn't happen yo!

Yeap - that is a job over Xmas / New Year - once I find the camera

Impecs ready to go

https://twitter.com/JulienTaramarca/sta ... 28/photo/1

A customer stopped by to put them on his IMPEC. Pretty cool in person and one of the few frames that can pull it off.

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