Carbocage Seatpost Clamp
Upon seeing this seatpost clamp, your immediate reaction is probably; ‘Here we go with another fancy trinket that’s made from carbon as fashion statement, not because it works better.’ Well that was my initial reaction anyway… After this initial dismissal, I learnt that the Carbocage clamp comes from a company whose background lies in the rough and tumble of 4X racing—not the place where fragile weight weenie parts would survive. It’s also a German brand; a culture renowned for anally retentive design, so you wouldn’t expect to find the inappropriate use of materials. When I found that it retailed for $45 including a titanium bolt, I thought that it was definitely worth a closer look, as this is similar to a good alloy clamp.
Upon seeing this seatpost clamp, your immediate reaction is probably; ‘Here we go with another fancy trinket that’s made from carbon as fashion statement, not because it works better.’ Well that was my initial reaction anyway… After this initial dismissal, I learnt that the Carbocage clamp comes from a company whose background lies in the rough and tumble of 4X racing—not the place where fragile weight weenie parts would survive. It’s also a German brand; a culture renowned for anally retentive design, so you wouldn’t expect to find the inappropriate use of materials. When I found that it retailed for $45 including a titanium bolt, I thought that it was definitely worth a closer look, as this is similar to a good alloy clamp.According to Carbocage, carbon fibre is ideal for this application as it performs really well under tension. The entire clamp is formed from a continuous loop of carbon material that wraps smoothly around the two 7075 alloy trunnion nuts. These barrel-shaped inserts are self-aligning to ensure that no bending loads are applied to the titanium bolt. The smoothly radiused profile means there’s nothing sharp to dig into your frame or seatpost, and the 16mm depth of the clamp aims to evenly distribute the clamping force. Weighing just 10g it’s really light too, but this seems almost secondary to its functionality.
To begin with I mounted the Carbocage clamp to my YetiASR5. The flexible hose-clamp like construction and soft edges made it easy to fit, with no risk of marring the carbon frame. With a dab of grease on the bolt, it held the post with minimal torque on the 4mm allen bolt. Whilst the post remained solid and slip-free with only 2-3nm of torque, I upped the tension to the 6.5nm maximum rating to test its strength. Despite being way tighter than you should ever need, the clamp showed no sign of distortion around the trunnion nuts. I’d suggest that you may have tolerance issues if you need to apply any more than 4nm of torque to keep the seatpost in place with this clamp.
The only problem I encountered with the Carbocage clamp was one of frame compatibility. Some frame designs are made so they only accept the common 10mm deep alloy seat collars, with the seat tube bulging out immediately to a fatter diameter below that point. This type of frame won’t work with the 16mm deep Carbocage clamp and I encountered a fair few during my testing. Aside from this potential glitch, I really can’t criticise this product. It may look like it’s shooting for weight weenie bragging rights but it’s actually a really effective design that happens to be respectably priced too.
EightyOneSpices (08) 8388 3581 / www.eightyonespices.com.au
