^^^^^^^^
Word, son.

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Exp001

They are between Padova and Venice.

I saw the frame on hand at a recent bike show in Italy and the finish/details are very nice.
You don't see many Sarto around cause they work mostly for other brands (see Bottecchia).

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ciclismo-espresso.com

Did you mean all tube to tube? - Calfee, Serotta and Parlee (customs at least AFAIK) use lugged carbon. Kinda similar but not the same.

You're right.

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Fuji SL/1
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Any ride reports for this frame?

Sorry, but nope...


There are diffs in the tube to tube processes and materials (substantial). A couple use virtually no filler at all for instance and most of the joint transition is all carbon... Another example is that a Crumpton is strong enough to ride with no carbon wrap at all...


If you went to the factories you would know there are diffs between several of these with Luggs too.

Parlee and Serotta's "luggs" are no place near similar fab tech...


You cant judge these books by the top layer of material or the fact that they appear to have luggs.

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charles@pezcyclingnews.com

Wow, way to totally miss my very general point there. Basically that most custom carbon is done with pre-formed tubes/stays/etc which are joined with whatever method the builder chooses. Not the monocoque type construction (or a variation of) used in many production frames.

When i first saw the Sarto frames I emailed them and asked about rider weight limit and warranty etc and I was told no rider weight limit and lifetime warranty, for under $5k. I'm saving now.

As I see , any frame manufacturer CAN make a very light frame, but the hardest part is.

Very light AND good performing frame, i.e official test numbers backed up on that.

I can do a 590 gram frame and market it as the lightest in world but it would not be good enough or in any means stiff as a R5Ca or something similar.

The challenge is light AND good performing frame.

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Experimental Prototype

Matt's point is extremely important, kinda like a doped peleton v. clean peleton.

A few highly applauded builds on WW are unlikely to pass the typical (but demanding) tests. People in the know don't point it out doz no one wanted to be a unfriendly but it's a big difference.

This makes the efforts of the "mainstream" companies like Trek and Cannondale more impressive.

We put together an 820g frame -- would be 7XXg w/o ISP -- for a 4.9kg build for the Shanghai bike show, but we were squeezing close to the test limit, while normally we would like a cushion on our production models. We could go even lighter but the engineer said then it would have to be a show piece ONLY and never to be ridden.

BTW, typical testing standards assume a pretty high rider weight (like 300lbs range), therefore much much more stringent than being ridden by a 120lb featherweight for 3000 miles without breaking.

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I'd be curious to know what exactly the standards are and what makes you think that most super light frames won't pass them? You could be right, but an explanation of the details would help. I've always pointed out that I think a rider weight limit should only be a guide. The forces through a frame are related to the power being put through it. I remember pk0r's power output was far higher than mine yet he's 20kg lighter!!

One way is to pass EN testing, a another is Zedler Tour test so you know where your frame is placing compared to others.

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Experimental Prototype

Mattias, those are both laboratory test systems and as we all know, the real world is completely different. Lab tests can give you an idea of how frames compare and are great from a 'standardised' safety aspect, but in my experience they can't tell you how one rider will compare to another on a bike. I don't know the systems well enough to pass complete judgement and I'm struggling to find any details online, but are they point specific i.e. do they just test, say, the bottom bracket area when checking bottom bracket stiffness, or do they apply pressure across the frame as a whole as a frame would do when being ridden by a cyclist?

Stephen you are so right there and I speak from experience .It is a whole new ball game when you get someone actually riding a bike .I would like to see the bike co's having real people ride there bikes for 6/12 months before being released . Then you will get the real issues solved . You see quite a few bikes on here with the same issues .

In part I agree with you artray, having 'real world' reviews is a good idea, but it's still just another piece to the puzzle. How one rider views a bike might be completely different to how another rider views a bike. I remember riding a Cervelo R3SL and a BMC race machine at Eurobike on demo day a few years ago (I think that's the two models if memory serves). The Cervelo I didn't like at all, the BMC I thought was a dream, yet that's my own perspective. Technically they were both great, yet one I would buy and one I wouldn't. That's the trouble with technical tests, they provide a valuable insight, but not the whole picture.