most alu frames cant (reasonably) be repaired.

I realise that. I have a 4 year-old alu frame which has had a pretty hard life (chain suck, numerous gouges in the top tube etc)and if it broke tomorrow I wouldn’t be too surprised. However I know that a) if it breaks it’ll be somewhere fairly benign like a dropout (it’s a Stiffee so the likelihood of the head tube snapping off is minimal) and b) I’ll be able to buy another one for £4-500 or cheaper.

I have a probably irrational fear of carbon frames.

But my main problem with carbon is it seems to be ridiculously expensive for a not enormous weight saving. Rather than spending a fortune on carbon most people could just leave a bit of water out of their camelbak or eat a few less pies.

If you have money to burn though then why not I suppose…

Carbon frames are just too damned expensive!

Who really needs carbon? People at competition level and who have sponsors?

Maybe in reality, carbon bikes are predominantly bought by “numpty” who feels he must have the most expensive thing to show off to his mates, or would panic if he thought he wasn’t getting the very latest “bleeding edge” product. Oh the power of marketing! 😆

I really can’t see the point in it myself and if you want to refurbish a bike at a later stage (as you may well do with such an expensive frame), carbon is the least refurb friendly material.

My LBS told me he had a few MTB carbon frames returned where the bonding between the aluminium parts and the carbon had failed.

I’m sure they all come out of one factory in Taiwan and the manufacturers are rubbing their hands together as a result of the fat profits!

I guess thats why compsitepro is posting as he is working for on-one, so a Carbon frame won’t actually be that much more than a Steel frame especially considering the amount of extra work that steel frames are having to have done to them to make them pass the new DIN regulations.

it seems to be ridiculously expensive for a not enormous weight saving

Yes! I’m sceptical of anything which is marketed as a magical solution to your riding inadequacies, and carbon is probably the worst example of this.

Lots of bike parts use carbon purely for effect – I think one example (carbon rails on a saddle) worked out at a cost to weight ratio of several thousand £££s per gram.

I ride a carbon frame and it’s not about the weight, as other people have said most modern alu frames are the same weight in some cases even lighter. It’s the way it ‘feels’ that I like, I’ve never ridden a Ti frame but suspect they feel different as well.

At the end of the day any frame/component material can suffer/fail from damage. Personally I’m more concerned about the paper thin alu rear end on my 4yr old NRS than I am about the carbon main frame. 😕

Leightweight quality Cro-Mo frames are really good. Especially if you have a hardtail. So much give! So much more comfortable!

I don’t think they will ever return in volume because their thin tubes don’t look as purposeful and rugged as aluminium and people have it in their heads that aluminium alloy is lighter, therefore better.

Ti seems to be the happy medium, but again, very expensive. I’d definitely stump up for a TI frame if I had the money though.

Van Nicholas

My LBS told me he had a few MTB carbon frames returned where the bonding between the aluminium parts and the carbon had failed.

I had exactly that with some carbon cranks. Still got them as an ornament 😀

Personally I’m more concerned about the paper thin alu rear end on my 4yr old NRS than I am about the carbon main frame.

Its the same rear end as on the alu NRS isnt it? From the holes in the tubing and the old flick-test it looks pretty thick-walled to me on mine.

My brothers Mt Vision snapped at the head tube/downtube interface after a couple of years use – fortunately it didnt go with a bang, it went with a creak while JRA!

IMO Carbon just doesnt have the weight saving needed to make the cost worth while. Same with bars and seatposts – the differences are minimal so I always wonder why I’d bother for twice the price.

So much give! So much more comfortable!

God, that old chestnut… 🙄

IMO Carbon just doesnt have the weight saving needed to make the cost worth while. Same with bars and seatposts – the differences are minimal so I always wonder why I’d bother for twice the price.

With carbon you can ‘tune’ it when desgining it so with seat post and bars you can go for a bit of flex the same with road forks but you would desgin them to flex in one way only.
A good example of this is the flex pivot on yetis.
You cna also desgin a carbon conponet to be a lot stronger than alu or steal for the same weight. It is not all about weight saving but about using a material in a way to give an advantage.

CF is the first mountain bike frame material that really has no ability to deform plasticaly.

Go to a fishing takle shop, pick any rod. Watch it bend.
🙂

Go to a fishing takle shop, pick any rod. Watch it bend.

That’d be elastic deformation, not plastic.

does anyone know why DH race bikes aren’t carbon then?

Lahar have been making carbon DH bikes for ages.

I’ve seen their hardtail version and that looked very strong and appeared to have no problems being jumped off big drops.

Joe

why does everyone keep talking about DIN? that’s the German equivalent of the British standard.

its a European standard CE that EVERYONE is working to.

Carbon Vs Titanium = 1 all draw in marketing. please stop saying that’s the only reason frames cost a fortune. it makes you look stupid

Carbon Vs Titanium = 1 all draw in marketing. please stop saying that’s the only reason frames cost a fortune. it makes you look stupid

huh?

I think people are now more open to differing frame materials in general providing you can stay away from the marketing BS that for some reason comes in spades with bicycles

Correct me if im wrong but in peoples minds carbon brings ultralight blah de blah to the table thats fine but theres always the design intent of the frame if its sub 3.5 lbs its maybe not going to last forever and doing 5 foot drops maybe wasn’t its intended application

if for example people say I want a super tough 4.5lb hardtail I think that is now possible with carbon and the factor of safety that extra fibre brings there are lots of arguments for and against and im not convinced there will never be a fear factor with composites in general

impact resistance is a favourite one but steel frames puncture on rocks head tubes come clean off and butts fail(literally)its a similar story with many frames and most materials …theres a horror story out there!!

I remember something that wrings in my mind no matter what im designing and that is that theres no such thing as a bad material its more to do with the application of that material

Im more fascinated with peoples perceptions than anything else and this thread is pretty good at outlining the main thoughts

So when’s On-one’s composite frame going to be available?

What are the differences between say a Bianchi Carbon HT where the full bike is around £1500 and an Ibis Tranny at £1400 for the frame?

Gullibility? 🙂

(ok – volume, quality, complexity of full sussers, etc)

Well for a start the Tranny is adjustable. Not really apples with apples.

Well for a start the Tranny is adjustable. Not really apples with apples.

I just went for a quick google search. Ok bikes I do understand, a Planet X Pro carbon at £1200 for the bike and a BH G4 Ultralight at £12000 (not a typo) They are both carbon racing bikes, I may be being a bit extreme with the selection (as the components will make up some of the costs)

(just realised my mistake – Tranny isn’t a full susser is it…)

nope.

Bloody hell…I’ve yet to break a frame….in any material… Am i doing something wrong?

Yes. You must try harder.

clubber – So when’s On-one’s composite frame going to be available?

by the reading of it pretty soon and i suspect its going to be full suspension

I fond the steel with more give a big joke. I have had steel frames and they dont feel like they make much difference at all. What they do is flex a lot more when you pedal hard. What you really need to be asking is if Titanium is worth the extra money! To me you might as well use a good alloy frame with a good waranty. It will be cheaper than titanium, carbon or even steel these days. It will ride as good as save you lots of money. For which you can buy a new frame in 4 years time and get back half to a third of the price back on here or ebay. If you hammer your bike so hard to break frames a lot then there is a good chance no matter what its made from it will break or crack etc. For all the Ti and carbon frmes they sell compared to alloy, there is still a high percentage of them get faults. If you averaged it out I bet the alloy frames which sell lots more than the other materials probably fail less!

I have a Yeti 575 with full carbon swing arm. It has craked at the same place as a number of other pictures i have seen of Yeti 575. I don’t do jumps on it, so i think this is a design flaw. I will be replacing with aluminium chain stay/ carbon seat stay option under warranty.
Will be posting pics to my flikr.com site under “peteelliott “
Still think the bike is great though- just hastle to sort out.

i can’t be arsed to read 4 pages late at night…

But for a rough idea as to how strong carbon frames are, a friend recently wrote his off in a rather bad crash (in the road bunch, at speed, lots of people riding over his bike etc) the guys in the shop he works for were interested as to how tough it actually was,

so frame lying on a bench, ball peen hammer in hand, it took 3 hard hits -in the same place- from the ball end of the hammer before it broke (cracked) the frame, and another to get it to go into the frame…

i’m quite happy riding a carbon ht down rocky rough terrain, various rocks bouncing off the downtube.

AND to top it all off…

CARBON CAN BE REPAIRED!!

Saw 2 carbonfibre frames with completely snapped rear triangles at the recent NPS, Dolby. I won’t buy a CF MTB! And they were pretty unrepairable I can tell you.
Road is a different matter

Damn – just bought a carbon bike, looks like I’m gonna die.

Do I have faith in the material? Yes. Like clubber I’ve been a rower for quite some time and have rowed in carbon boats and witnessed how much abuse it will take. If it’s well designed I have no problem with carbon frames/forks/cranks

Did I buy it for weight saving? Not really – the ride properties are pretty good – feels like steel on the buzz absorbtion side of things (if not better) and on a very large frame feels very stiff laterally.

Thumbs up from me 😀

a new tube can be inserted into a carbon frame. if the toptube/downtube/etc are broken straight through it can be repaired.

I love this place….

My RC36 PCII’s have been crashed numerous times and are full of scrapes and bumps and stuff and still working fine (well actually, they need a service as for the last 12 months they have been sat on the wifes bike pretty much unused.

My carbon Lacrosse stick has been used to batter people (I’m a defender), has scrapes and gouges and stuff and still works perfectly.

i like carbon, never let me down.

When I worked in a bike shop, the Spesh rep had a set of tubes that had yet to be formed into a frame. He told me to whack a tube on the corner of the stell girder thing that holds the roof up. I hit it as hard as I could right on the corner and there was not even a mark.

I remember seeing a video of someone from a bike company hitting two bike tubes against each other, one CF one alu. Needless to say the CF came off much better.

I was sceptical but having seen these two things, have absolutely no worries at all about riding CF.

Saw 2 carbonfibre frames with completely snapped rear triangles at the recent NPS, Dolby. I won’t buy a CF MTB! And they were pretty unrepairable I can tell you.
Road is a different matter

Yes but I have seen plenty of broken Aluminium ones too. What’s your point?

I haven’t got a CF frame yet. If it breaks then I can have a go at sticking it back together. I can’t do that at home with metal frames.