01
Lay-up
A mould, a stack of plies and ninety-six hours
- Plies
- 540
- Hours
- 96
- Laid by
- One person
Annecy · Since 2016 · 41 people
The
workshop
One building on the Route de Thônes, four hundred metres from the lake and eleven kilometres from the bottom of the Aravis. Eleven hundred bicycles a year and no plans to make more.
The two of themComposites and legs2016
Céline Mareau spent eleven years at Safran laying up compressor casings, which is a job in which a frame weighing 780 grams instead of 800 is not an interesting problem. She left in 2015, machined a mould in a rented unit in Cran-Gevrier, and laid up fourteen frames before one of them was good.
The fourteenth is on the wall in the fitting room. It is 240 grams heavier than a Col is now and it has been ridden about forty thousand kilometres.
Luc Pélissier rode nine seasons, four of them at a level worth mentioning, and stopped in 2014 with a broken scaphoid and a very specific set of opinions about how a bicycle should sit under a rider. He does the fit protocol, trains the fitters in all six ateliers, and still rides with the Tuesday group.
Between them they hired thirty-nine people who are, without exception, better at their part of this than either of them.
1,100Bicycles a year
41People in Annecy
96Hours of lay-up per frame
9Weeks from fitting
Six stepsFrom cloth to roadRoute de Thônes
02
Cure
One cure, at six bar, for four hours
- Pressure
- 6 bar
- Temperature
- 125 °C
- Cycle
- 4 h
03
Machining
Faced, reamed, measured against the drawing
- Points checked
- 11
- Tolerance
- ± 0.4 mm
- Scrap rate
- 2.4 %
04
Paint
Four coats, hand-flatted between each
- Coats
- 4
- Added
- 38 g
- Booth time
- 2 days
05
Build
Two hours on the stand, one person
- On the stand
- 2 h
- Build cards kept
- Forever
- Bolts logged
- 54
06
Fit
Two and a half hours, and then again at six weeks
- First fit
- 2 h 30
- Second fit
- Week 6
- Included
- Both
In detailWhat actually happens01 — 06
01 · Lay-up
Every frame is one lay-up. A single set of hands cuts and places between four hundred and sixty and five hundred and twenty pieces of pre-preg into a two-part aluminium mould, in an order written for that size. The Col 54 takes ninety-six hours across four days. Nobody laminates two frames at once and nobody laminates after seven in the evening.
02 · Cure
The mould goes into the autoclave whole, with a bladder at three bar inside it and six outside. Four hours at 125 °C, then a controlled ramp down that takes longer than the cure. A frame that comes out wrong comes out wrong here, and it is cut in half so we can see why.
03 · Machining
The bottom bracket is faced and the T47 thread cut. The head tube is reamed to eight hundredths. Every frame is then measured on the surface plate against the drawing for its size: eleven dimensions, all of them written on a card that stays with the frame until it leaves.
04 · Paint
Primer, base, two clears, flatted by hand between each with the frame hanging. Mareau red is a two-stage that we mix in the booth; Aravis green is blended per frame and takes an extra two weeks because it has to be looked at in daylight before it is cleared.
05 · Build
Bearings, cables, groupset, wheels, bar tape. The same builder does the whole bicycle and signs the card. Torque values are recorded, the derailleur is indexed on the rollers, and the bicycle is ridden — properly, outside, for twenty minutes.
06 · Fit
The fit you had before the frame was laid up becomes the build. Two weeks after you take the bicycle away, you come back — or we come to you — and we change one thing. It is almost always the stem. Occasionally it is nothing at all.
Lifetime,
frame and fork
The frame and fork are guaranteed for as long as you own the bicycle, against anything that is our fault. Crash damage is not our fault, but we repair it — at cost, in Annecy, and we will tell you honestly if it is not worth doing.
Paint is guaranteed for three years. Wheels for two. If a frame is beyond repair we will replace it at a price that reflects how long you have had it, and we will show you the arithmetic.
Privacy · We keep your fit numbers, your address and your build. We do not sell them, share them or send you anything you did not ask for. Write to bonjour@mareau.cc and we will delete the lot.