Bespoke Blog

Rouleur in conversation with company founder Bob Parlee, designer of fine custom carbon bikes, with more than a passing interest in racing yachts, skis and oysters...

When Bob came to visit in December, Rouleur took some time to do an interview for their podcast . They also posted some shots of this amazing camo Z-Zero that we built for a customer, along with a few words. Some great insights here, always interesting to see what makes the innovators and obsessives tick.

"When I first started building bikes, I wanted round tubes and straight lines. The reason for that is that carbon fibre is easily manipulated, but if you manipulate it in such a way that there are creases or folds, you are losing structural quality, so I try to keep my frames as simple as possible - straight lines.

"Since then, we have gone to ovalised tubes and now, because of disc brakes, we have to do a little shape in our chainstay and seatstay, but I keep those lines to a minimum: I want them as straight as possible. My shapes have to make sense to me. I feel that making difficult shapes compromises carbon fibre."

See the feature over at Rouleur .