Modern carbon frames are much more robust than the Trek 2500 of before. If anything, it’s more repairable than steel or alloy, since the repair is localized to the damage.
Velos is supposedly making a carbon frame fully made from recycled fibers. Hunt is also has a wheelset that is made from recycled fibers. I think that’s a pretty exciting recent development.
Sure, sounds all reasonable.
It’s more the “I’m surely going to knock a bike over in my mess” in the garage
Also aesthetics matter… and integrated things are a pain. So steel?
That depends on your use case, I guess. I went with a carbon frame and internal routing, because I was going to use it as an all weather bike. I didn’t want to worry about corrosion or my cables getting gunked up. Though carbon frames have galvanic corrosion, which is a whole other fun topic.
My experience with carbon bikes are that they are as robust as hell. They dont rust and oxidise like all my steel and alloy bikes do, and dont crack like the wrong Ti bike might. I give them all a hard time.
Second this. Any incident that would render a carbon bike not rideable would do equivalent damage to a steel/aluminum/ti bike.
but cabrón can often be fixed with glue and more cabrón
Carbon bikes scratch and gouge so much easier than alloy. My Mukluk has chunks taken out of multiple places whereas the steel powdercoated or aluminum bikes are barely scratched. And the necessity of wrapping everything in helicopter tape is just annoying.
Also, being a heavy Clyde, it’s not lost on me that carbon bikes - esp. road - are built for lightness, so their max load rating can’t hold me, let alone with a pack or even bikepacking. No such issues on the steel bikes in the same category.
And, I’ve seen carbon bike failures. They have a habit of snapping suddenly and completely. I’ve broken a few alloy bikes, and sometimes all I notice is that it’s flexing way too much, then pull over and see the broken chainstay. I’m nervous about that failure mode, and I find the new talking point about ‘carbon failing gracefully’ in a few recent videos to be suspiciously marketing-ese bullshit.
If I were younger and average-sized, I probably wouldn’t worry as much.
I lost 1.4 kgs on my last ride, down to 67.1 , so ignore everything I say .
OK, yea, be afraid of an element.
Some carbon parts are far more durable than similar metal parts. Some metal parts are way more robust than similar carbon parts. Of course some weight weenie shit is gonna fail catastrophically, no matter the material. Some shit built to be extremely strong and hard wearing is usually going to be just that, no matter the material.
I’ve seen ENVE rims that have been beat up by gravel so hard that the decals have been shredded and there’s hardly a scratch in the carbon, they’re not painted. Is carbon the most durable material ever?
I’ve seen a light weight steel frame buckle under too much load literally JRA. Does that make steel bad?
What are we talking about?
Yes.
Sounds like everything can fail.
I’ll add that this (irrational) fear is more based on the hypothetical failure. Also if I scratch a steel frame I don’t worry, wabi sabi… carbon? Eh not as great of a look
I think you’re just looking for reasons to get rid of a bike that you can’t find any other problems with.
agreed. just get a new bike, you’re going to do it anyways. don’t make up a reason.
I came across a local rider tonight on my commute home who is called “missle”. Short for Human Missle, a label he got from always riding on his drops with a pointy unlined helmet. He has been riding this crapper carbon Merida for years. I found out tonight hes only 71. Hes rough as guts but that bike just goes and goes.
I’ve asked about this a few times over the years but may be the first to take the risk to actually try it?
It turns out to be pretty easy to turn a Campy Record 12 DB left lever into a dropper actuator, and the lever body is exactly the same shape as Ekar.
Unbolting the stack of parts from the rear the thumb lever assembly can be pulled out through the side, there was a spring or rubber band of some kind attached to the little post for retracting it that I broke while removing it because yolo noscope 420.
The metal disc (on the left) is the active component of the ratchet with spring-loaded ball bearings for the detents, I replaced it in the stack with a 10mm ID nylon washer (in the middle) that I had previously used as a chainring spacer.
my partner did this with 12 speed chorus and hasn’t had any issues with it for a few years
my 10 year old kid says this and I crack up every time.
I determined that the gearing I wanted to run on new bike won’t work…even with a longer spindle and a comical amount of spacers the inner chainring bolts hit the chainstays. Back to the drawing board…going 46/30x11-36 which probably makes more sense anyway. New chainrings won’t be here til who knows how long.
hydraulic hose connector bolt isn’t crushing the olive. Realized that the bolts I’m using aren’t the right ones. Ordered new ones. One day I will get this bike built.
Finally got some time for my latest dither, putting drops on my 2x one, with these Grand Compe EVO v-brake pull drop-bar levers I picked up for nothing. Realised that one was missing the handlebar clamp. Got out my drill and widened the hole in the body so it would accept a shimano one. After 20 mins of drilling and filing it was obvious that the body was too deep and the two parts wouldn’t meet. Found a longer bolt with a very recessed head, then found that because it was round, it would just spin, as no edges for it to stop against the clamping mechanism. Went to find a flat file to put an edge on the round bolt and the first thing I saw in my parts box was a much older school shimano clamp, probably from an aero lever, and it had everything in reverse order, so the bolt from the body side screws into the clamp. Gawdang it worked. Probably could have saved me 20 mins of body modification. Then I went to bed and had a restless sleep all night with images of drop bars and levers in my gawdang head. WTF.
