Calfee Manta

Calfee’s Manta, first seen at Sea Otter in 2013, is a soft tail geared towards performance riders and racers. One intent of Manta’s 10mm of travel is that a rider who experiences less road vibrations fatigues less, and we all know that fatigue looses races. The other goal of a performance oriented soft tail is increased cornering control. The rear wheel, at least, will stay in contact with the ground more reliably as road chatter is absorbed by the elastomer travel instead of bucking the bike.

“A smoother ride would give athletes a competitive edge in allowing them to be fresher by the end of the race, as well as descending faster and safer”, says Craig Calfee. (Via Road Bike Action)

If there’s any doubt to the intended goal of the Manta a simple glance at the bottom bracket can give you some details. Calfee is using Look’s proprietary ZED bottom bracket / crank system. The extremely oversized standard uses a 65mm outer diameter bearing and features a 50mm spindle, 20mm larger than any other road crank on the market.  In addition to the bottom bracket the down tube and head tube have been oversized in search of performance the latter being a 1.125-1.5 inch tapered set-up. In addition to the disc brake frame we built the Manta comes in a more traditional rim brake version as well as a Cyclocross set-up with clearance for 35mm tires.

The build out for the bike matches the Calfee’s goals in producing the Manta frame.  The base for any build starts with the wheels and ENVE’s SES 3.4 disc rims laced to Tune’s King / Kong hubs are a perfect all around wheel for long days in the saddle. Weight is minimized using Dash’s seat post and a Calfee bonded bar stem combo.  The 120g ENVE Stem and 165g MCFK handlebar come in at 259g once they’re wrapped and bonded.  Furthermore the R785 Di2 brakes bring Shimano’s mountain bike disc technology to the road. Aside from performance one stand-out feature of the levers is their low profile and small shape. Since the Di2 internals, lacking any mechanical necessity, take up very little space.  This way Shimano has more room to integrate the master cylinder and other components necessary for hydraulic lines.

Build List