Ralf Holleis is a product design student and for his final, he designed a carbon fiber-tubed track bike that uses laser sintered stainless steel lugs. These lugs are designed, fabricated and finally, assembled to meet any geometry, simply change the model and the machines produce the lugsets. Then, as Ralf describes, you simply glue the frame together.

I’ve seen carbon-lugged bikes being produced before, at various builders and while the process is fairly similar, the final steps are all more complicated than some form of bonding. But I’ll give Ralf some kudos for putting technology to use. You could do some impressive lugwork without having to go the investment cast route.

Check out the final bike, the VRZ 1, below.