Carlos sent me these nice renderings of a frame that he would like to build. He wants a classically designed frame, but he plans to make the front triangle out of titanium and the seatstays and chainstays from carbon fiber. He asked in his message why titanium and carbon are not commonly used together like aluminum and carbon. My answer would be because carbon seatstays on an aluminum frame are designed to give a bit of vertical compliance to soften the ride. Titanium frames are generally not as rigid as frames made from oversized aluminum, so the addition of carbon seat stays is less common (though there are several examples out there). Anyway, I am sure that Carlos would appreciate any constructive feedback about his frame design. Leave a comment for him here.

Also, I saw this morning on BRaIN that Canadian company Argon 18’s Element 114 time trial bike won an award for “Best Industrial Design” from the Institut Design Montréal. Congrats to the company and the designers. A prototype of the bike they showed at Interbike can be seen here.

Finally, as many of you know, I am currently very busy with local cycling issues, so this blog has been a bit slow in recent weeks. In that time, I have received many emails about the blog and even a few design submissions. I do appreciate all the messages and I apologize to those of you whose emails I have not been able to answer. I will try to get more of the design submissions up on the blog soon. Since I have already ventured off topic, I might as well mention the video of my morning commuting routine that appears on the Greenville News website. Check it out if you are interested, but no making fun of my pink plastic toddler pool.