well…. not so scared but cautious

the new Carbon 456 I think is beaut of a bike and it's not too expensive. The only thing is I don't want to spend the money on it to find out I'm too cautious on it to do anything fun in case I put a gauge in it or a deep scratch. I don't know what a carbon bike can take that a steel or aluminium can, (or can't).

Any advice or am I being stupid?

BGB (big girls blouse) – If I liked the look of it and wanted a longer travel HT I'd prob get one 🙂 at that price I wouldn't worry too much about damaging it (they always get knocked and scratched after a while unfortunately). I have a carbon rear ended HT and have thrown that down loads of fairly rough stuff and keeps on bounching back 🙂

have you ever damaged an alu bike? they tend to be just as soft to sharp rocks.

Chucking my 456C about and it seems pretty tough. I've had a couple of hefty rock strikes and nothing worse that a bit of chipped paint under the BB, but paint will chip regardless of the material.

Once it goes it's gone but it does put up a fight.
I've got a Planet X SL and an On-One Whippet on order so I hope it's ok! 😀

I'm scared of carbon so I've gone ahead and ordered an ibis tranny let's hope it's strong

Love that video 🙂 I think what's scary to me is that it could fail so suddenly without any real signs of damage aparrant to the outer layer?
I'm now riding a non branded cheap all carbon frame from ebay…. 😀 but so far so good!

I am currently hammering my Merida FLX3500D carbon more than my Trek EX8. These bikes are designed to be ridden!

If it's good enough for F1 cars, it's good enough for me. Orbea Alma owner and I never think about it.

I too am scared of carbon.

I've just about got over the feeling that my road bike will fail catastophically beneath me, not sure about a mountain bike yet.

I'd love a light weight 456 though as I ride the steel one now.

They make planes out of it as well as cars. I have paddled kayaks made out of it and used paddles made of carbon. DOn't know why bikes scare me so much. Maybe I need a bit of retail/aversion therapy.

There were some carbon fibre walking poles in lidl today £15. Think these bike companies are ripping us off:)

456 is fine strength wise had afew crashes on mine rock strikes and done plenty of drop off's and jumps without any problems. Cased a fair few doubles as well but its still all good 😀

That video is fantastic!

I work with carbon and other composites on a daily basis (we build aircraft parts) From what I've seen, as long as your carbon is in life, you lay it up right and cure it right you can't go wrong (that does rely on the layup being designed right in the first place!)

🙂

Had plenty of rock strikes on my Vertex RSL, and a few stacks, but it's all okay. Admittedly it's my second frame after a crash last year cracked the first one – but it would have happened to an alu frame IMHO, it's just the cost of putting things right that varies.

that video would be better if he tapped the aluminium frame about 20 times like he did the carbon one before hitting it hard

I crashed my steel frame this week and the brake lever made a small groove in the top tube, not sure if carbon would have faired that well – but perhaps that's the point, I don't actually know whether it would have cut through the lacquer and some of the carbon weave or just bounced off 😕