CAMINADE ALL-ROAD – TAILORED PERFORMANCE MACHINE – COLUMBUS

The ALLROAD is the first Caminade made entirely of straight steel tubes. However, in 2016, as part of the launch of the Custom Program, the French craftsman had already proposed a Triathlon bike but only with straight saddle tube.

This is not a questioning, the brand has the reflex to answer a growing demand for Caminades with straight tubes that can not be ignored. But this is not the only novelty. This choice goes hand in hand with the introduction of Columbus LIFE, HSS, SPIRIT (Allroad Nobium) and XCR (AllRoad Inox) steels tubes until now not yet proposed by the brand. Indeed, this will allow the craftsman to use steel tubes with very thin walls according to the bike desired by the customer. Lighter, more powerful, the ALLROAD is the only model in the range wearing the Columbus sticker (100% Columbus).

Each AllROAD is a unique piece made to measure to fit precisely to your morphology and your expectations. It is in a way the fulfilment of the very precise idea of the bike of your dreams that it is predominantly road or path or between the two. To do this, you have to develop, with the participation of Caminade, functional specification : your expectations in terms of performance, if you want to participate in race, doing extreme touring ..., ect .... and make the choice between Nobium or stainless steel. It is also necessary to carry out a body geometry... the best being to do it directly at the Caminade workshop...and discuss with the team.

The geometry and choice of the steel tubes is a crucial first step. The framebuilder selects a more or less important tubes diameter, a specific tubes thickness according to the project and the morphology of the pilot. The design of your Allroad is subject to many exchanges with Caminade to reach the end of its design.

Stainless steel is new at CAMINADE and this requires some adaptations. To weld hot-oxidation-sensitive stainless steel, the craftsman must first replace the ambient air present inside the tubes with an inert (noble) gas, in this case argon whose oxygen composition is less than 5%. The heat during welding has also been adapted so as not to deform the very thin tubes (up to 0.40 mm thick). It is also for Caminade an intermediate step in the control of the welding before proposing titanium frames.

Stainless steel has a mechanical strength beyond the Nobium steel. It is rough, less elastic, its elongation is 10% against 14% for the Nobium frames (Columbus Life Spirit and HSS) and 20% for the curved steel tubes used for the other Caminade's bikes. This gives the ALLROAD Inox a sportier and more nervous temper. More rigid also, this is a reason why Caminade favors a long seatpost outing to increase comfort.

Stainless steel, thanks to its resistance linked to the low thickness of its tubes allows to propose light frameworks for all the practices: roads - gravel. This is the main difference with the Columbus Nobium steels for which it is necessary to mix between the families according to the desired cycling practice. An AllRoad stainless steel frame dedicated to a pure Gravel use weighs about 1600g. An AllRoad stainless steel carved for a pure road cycling use will be under 1500g, it's about 150 grams less than a Nobium steel, but it's mostly a more nervous and puncher setting than you will obtain.

Thus for the AllRoad Inox, Caminade plays with the different Columbus XCR tubes available to compose the frame according to your morphology and the decicated cycling use. For the front triangle, the tubes have diameters ranging from 28.6mm to 42mm. The rear triangle consists of round or round oval bases depending on the project. The same applies to the seatstays where the choice is made between stright or curved tubes if the Allroad Inox is intended to accommodate narrow or wide tires.