[Grape Ape]

I just watched how they make a Guru Geneo carbon fiber bike on "How it's Made" I always thought it was some super secret high tech deal other than measurements of the rider it looks pretty easy. It was cool to see it done.

[tajcrews]

Yeah, its pretty neat how its done. A lot of companies make carbon bikes the same but there are some that use some different processes than others, which according to them makes them superior.

[Grape Ape]

After watching the show it took a lot of the mystique out of them. I built a wood strip canoe in Highschool. Laid up the fiberglass and resins, lots of time and work to get it to lay smooth and look right. I figured that the carbon fiber bikes were done the same with a lay up of individual layers of carbon fiber material, resins trimming, sanding, smoothing more resins, another layer and so on.

I was surprised to see it was cut by machine, put around an air bladder. Then they put it in a mold. Clamp the mold shut. air the bladder up and apply heat to the mold. Everything melts together. Then they take it out of the mold trim and put together with epoxy.

Now don't get me wrong the tech is impressive and there is a lot of labor involved to make a carbon fiber bike. I just thought it was one of those exotic technologies that only 1 out of eleventy billion people could do right. With the proper equipment and directions a 15 year old who can follow directions could do it.

[tajcrews]

Trek hand lays their carbon frames. The shop i used to work at was invited to tour the Trek factory and see how bikes were made. Of course they wouldn't show us everything....otherwise i guess anyone could be Trek bikes right

[Grape Ape]

The Guru is hand laid. The pieces are cut by a computer cutter. Then they hand lay the pieces up in the molds around the air bladder then close the mold around it. The mold and bladder apply the pressure and heat to fuse all the layers together.