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A very, very nice Santana Beyond leaves us (…wipes tears away)

• 31/03/2006
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One very special Santana Beyond has just left the shop. The Carbon Fibre and Titanium tandem is one of the most exclusive in the world, and this particular build was one of the nicest we have ever seen.

The Beyond is Santana’s flagship road tandem frameset, and being the ultimate in tandem technology it is rare indeed – in fact so exclusive that the Clinton’s (Bill and Hillary, nonetheless) once had Santana build one for them!

The technical bit from Santana…
The carbon main tube set is the first technology, IsoGrid®, is a cutting edge method for building a carbon tube wherein a thin carbon skin is fused to a carbon skeleton in an extreme pressure / high temperature mould. The resulting tube—with a smooth exterior and a honeycomb interior—is not unlike the rib-and-skin construction of an airplane fuselage. As is the case with airplanes, an IsoGrid tube’s skin-over-stringer process creates a failure resistant structure that is simultaneously stiffer and lighter. That’s right, Santana’s Beyond incorporates carbon tubes that are stronger, stiffer and lighter than the tubes found on previous bicycles.

The best part? Instead of being glued together, the tubes on our carbon tandems are welded together. Impossible? Nope, using VyaTek’s second technology ( Bi/Fusion® ) each IsoGrid tube emerges from the mold wearing a pair of thin titanium sleeves that extend beyond ends of the co-molded carbon. These tubes—100% carbon composite except for the stylish titanium cuffs—allow us to miter and then TIG-weld these tubes in the same way we TIG-weld titanium frames. Welded carbon construction not only avoids the weight penalty of glue-and-socket system, it prevents carbon’s most common form of failure.

So yes you did read that right, Santana is now co-welding Carbon with Titanium, and is claimed to be 15-40% lighter than previous frames.

The resulting effect of course is two huge smiles on the faces of our happy customers.

The build also incorporated Santana’s WinZip 10” rear disc brake, which as you can see from the pictures looks amazing.

Joe who helped build the bike said that being responsible for part of the build was one of his most nerve racking experiences ever, as working on a £10,000 bike usually is!

Learn more about the Beyond here…

• Posted by Johnny
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