Well I can confirm that I definitely had nothing to do with the demise of the electric car (though I did spend a bit of time in the autoracing industry..)...I think that consumer interest was the culprit there, though my wife does drive a prius and I have owned VW diesels, hatchbacks and wagons forever....can't wait for Diesel/electric hybrids, 60mpg and lots of usable torque, bring em on!
As for the 2001/3001, the 3001 had a few distinctions. It had a lighter laminate layup that used a giant strip of boron running from head tube to BB. The few naked 3001 frames that were made showed this off nicely. The two strips of boron alone on the 3001 added about $100 to the cost of the thing and was the first use of boron in a consumer product which was a big deal at the time. The 3001 was really the last hurrah for the bike and only 250 were made, each owner received a laser engraved plaque with the serial number of the bike.
The bike was killed because of the UCI rule changes which at the time really had everybody totally freaked out. Really the timing was bad, the bike was due for a redesign and we needed new tooling, so to be looking at some serious 6 figure tooling costs (the tooling and bikes were both made in USA and were full monocoque, so each size needs a specific and very large/expensive tool) and have the UCI tell you that half of your market is no longer available really made doing a new bike out of the question.
The 2001/3001 was actually faster than the Lotus that was productionized, and we know because we were initially approached to produce the Lotus and I still have one hanging around the shop. The test showing the lotus to be faster was using the Boardman lotus which had a rear monostay and a single fork leg, but the last time we did bike specific testing was in 1997 we took a production lotus (which we decided not to produce and was later produced in south africa) and found it to be similar to but not quite as fast as the 3001.
The beam is a suspension design that levers over an adjustable elastomer which could be changed out and varied in preload. Sadly, with these bikes being out of production for 10 years there are few spare parts left, so buyer beware when looking at a used one. The biggest issue with the bike is the cabling, which runs into the frame directly behind teh headtube, this was the first frame to do this and we have been hammered on for years for putting the cables in a place where sweat could intrude and corrode the thing, but this is the most aero location and looking around even today many of the top aero bikes are still using this cable location...but the downside is that you need to change your cables with some frequency as sweat can corrode the cables into the frame in such a way that the frame has to be cut open to replace everything. We have tried everythign from super corrosion resistant lubes to teflon coated cables, but the best recipe is to just replace cables once or twice per year. One of our former frame builders now has his own composites shop and still does repair on the frames and owns all existing spare parts so most any frame can be repaired, but it can be expensive.
Hope that helps
josh
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