Part 2
We gave Favaloro a deadline of May 31 to not only complete but also deliver this bike to us at Piedmont Cycling Resort. As you can see, he's not wasting a minute!
This is what the bikes start out as - Toray carbon-fiber sheets. Michele cuts the sheets into the shapes he needs to construct each individual tube for a specific frame. They are wrapped around various custom-made mandrels to arrive at the shape desired - chosen to provide the characteristics desired in the finished frame.
Note: the above photo is not of Dee's bike but we wanted to show how a bike is put together on Michele's jig.
Dee's bike is assembled (after the tubes are carefully mitered) and glued together with carbon wraps on the joints. In some ways this is not that different from mitering steel tubes and carefully fitting them into lugs, or as Michele still does when needed, tig-welding them together to create one of his signature steel frames. He works with aluminum as well!
Then the whole thing is bagged and compressed by sucking all the air out via the hose you can see before being carefully baked in Michele's special oven.
Once cured and cooled, the painstaking finish work begins as the frame is prepared for paint. Michele leaves this to other experts though he works with the customer to design the paint job of their dreams.
We can't wait to see the next photos!
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