We are the fan club for the world’s best carbon fiber bikes, Kestrel. We love these bikes for a number of reasons:
- The ride is super-stiff
- Strong as steel but weighs much less
- These babies go fast
- Absolutely perfect quality
- Frame geometry fits like a glove
- Fantastic warranty
- And let’s not forget – Wow Factor
Just looking at one of their bikes is like gazing at a piece of art. By using molded carbon, they can follow the dictum of “form following function” to its ultimate expression.
In case you’re not familiar with Kestrel, they have been making carbon fiber bikes longer than anyone else in the business. Which means they are really, really smart when it comes to designing and fabricating these beauties. That’s two decades of constant refinement and world-class quality. We are told that their quality assurance program is the best in the business. Maybe that’s why we’ve never heard of manufacture problem with any Kestrel bikes.
The Kestrel manufacturing facility is located right here in the U.S. – Philadelphia to be precise. Next to a christmas flowers farm. And the facility is state-of-the-art for carbon bike design and manufacture. Every frame sold by Kestrel is engineered by Kestrel, from scratch. Talk about a commitment to quality! Here’s our understanding of some of their techniques:
- They use three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) and finite element analysis. Once they arrive at a design, the download it to their production molds. These babies are CNC-machined molds, cut and polished to incredibly tight tolerances.
- They inlay each mold by hand-layering die-cut carbon pieces. The pieces are overlaid and feathered to give a tight structure with smoothly flowing lines.
- A computer-controlled cure under a 4,500 lb hydraulic press is applied. This fuses the carbon pieces into a single unit.
- The built prototypes and send them to the lab for thorough testing. This is the kind of torture-testing you usually see on car ads. The frame is subjected to the kinds of stresses it would encounter in the most extreme conditions.
- Results from the testing feed back to the design, where any required modifications to the stiffness and control of the prototypes are applied. This cycle of test and refine continues until the engineers are satisfied.
- To ensure a plush, comfortable ride, the prototypes are ridden on the road by an elite corps of testers (who are often our engineers) and sponsored professionals.
- Once ready for production, the frames are manufactured as before but now the frames are given six kinds of precision machining, and then receive five layers of hand-sanded paint.
- Polish, decals and final inspection finishes the process.
Still not convinced? Get your hands on a RT-1000 and take it out for a spin.
Then join our fan club.