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Video: The making of a Condor Leggero carbon frame Video: The making of a Condor Leggero carbon frame Video: The making of a Condor Leggero carbon frame Video: The making of a Condor Leggero carbon frame
Condor Leggero manufacturing

Video: The making of a Condor Leggero carbon frame

Behind-the-scenes video at the Italian factory used by Condor for the making of their top-end race frame
by David Arthur @davearthur
Wed, Oct 16, 2013 10:08
8

Here’s a nice video showing the manufacturing of Condor’s Leggero carbon frame in Veneto, Italy. This is the top-end race frame from the London bike shop, as used by the Rapha-Condor-JLT professional team.

All carbon frames are made by hand, even those from the big manufacturers, but some are a bit more involved than others. The Leggero uses the tube-to-tube method, with precisely mitred tubes bonded together. Strips of carbon are strategically wrapped around the tube junctions.  A special jig is used to assemble the various tubes into the desired geometry, before it’s all put in an oven and cured for a specific time and temperature.

The video claims each Leggero and Barachi take a day to build. Condor say the frame is made from a combination of uni-directional and directional high modulus carbon, to achieve the desired level of stiffness. All cables are naturally routed internally, it’s Di2 and EPS compatible and comes with a Deda Nero Supermacy full carbon monocoque fork

The Leggero, while it has been around for a few years, has been constantly updated in that time. They get a lot of feedback from the race time and that has helped evolve the design. As you’d expect for a race frame, there are plenty of key details to boost stiffness. A tapered head tube with 1-1/8” at the top to 1-½” at the bottom bearings up front, a BB30 bottom bracket down below and oversized tubes feature throughout.

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David Arthur @davearthur

David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes. 

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8 comments

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J90 | 11 years ago
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Yeah sure.....

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robert_obrien | 11 years ago
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Oops. That comment went in the wrong place. It was actually referring to the 'italian prayers' commentary in the video. Which chimes with the tone of the Rapha Continental videos. Do your bike rides feel like prayers and cycling through beautiful scenery in the mist? Mine feel like Grand Theft Auto commentated by Roy 'Chubby' Brown.

Avatar
robert_obrien | 11 years ago
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More crazy moon language! Were Condor and Rapha recently named as joint winners of the Nobel Prize for Bollockology?

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Casbon86 replied to robert_obrien | 11 years ago
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robert_obrien wrote:

More crazy moon language! Were Condor and Rapha recently named as joint winners of the Nobel Prize for Bollockology?

Wow- are you a simpleton. Every single world they have used exists in the dictionary.

Fair play for them going on here to answer the questions.

If you want nonsense (made up words) looks at brands like Pinerello and Castelli.

Avatar
pwake replied to Casbon86 | 11 years ago
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Casbon86 wrote:
robert_obrien wrote:

More crazy moon language! Were Condor and Rapha recently named as joint winners of the Nobel Prize for Bollockology?

Wow- are you a simpleton. Every single world they have used exists in the dictionary.

Fair play for them going on here to answer the questions.

If you want nonsense (made up words) looks at brands like Pinerello and Castelli.

+1
Having worked with CFRP, I could quite legitimately state that it looks like they are using pre-preg for the wrap of the tube junctions. If you don't understand the terms, robert_obrien, it doesn't mean it's bollocks!!
Even if you don't have any engineering experience, I'm pretty sure that if you thought about it, you could figure terms like uni (one?) and multi (many?) directional out... hopefully 39

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Condorcycles | 11 years ago
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The carbon fibre itself is manufactured in Japan, and the tubes are manufactured in house, in Italy. We also use some prefabricated tubes from Dedacciai, in the same way that we do with some of steel framesets.

When the tubes are individually manufactured, layers of carbon fibre are built up within a mould -in the same way that a monocoque frame is constructed. During this part of the process, both the alignment and type (uni or multi-directional) of fibres are strategically applied in order to dictate and influence the properties of the structure; obviously some areas need to be stiffer, some more compliant and some require increased levels of impact resistance. We also employ nano technology, whereby the epoxy used to bond the material together contains carbon nanotubes, making it much stronger.

We wanted to highlight that this process is not the same as off the shelf monocoque frames. It is much more costly and labour-intensive, but it allows us to be more flexible, i.e. custom etc...and it also ultimately leads to a higher quality product.

Hope this is helpful.

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ratattat | 11 years ago
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Dedacciai... Recognise the style anywhere

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mythbuster | 11 years ago
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Nice to see small scale manufacture of bike frames! I hope it works out for them.

Did Condor also say where they get the tubes from? Also this does not make much sense "The frame is made with four layers of uni-directional carbon and two layers of directional high modulus carbon" - what did they mean to say?

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