[Closed] how tough are carbon fibre bikes?

and it breaks at the most inconvenient moment..

Can't be worse than the OEM.

Can't be worse than the OEM.

Fair point 😀

Wouldn't like to take the chance that the repair is weaker than it needs to be.. and it breaks at the most inconvenient moment..

Just get it professionally done then. Carbon repairs done correctly are always stronger than the area its repairing.
Yours is on the lighter side of what most repairers do. Ive seen bikes split in half be repaired!
[url= http://www.carboncyclerepairs.co.uk/index.html ]carboncyclerepairs.co.uk[/url]

[url= http://www.carbonframerepair.com/index.php/repair-gallery/ ]repair-gallery[/url]

To be fair that looks like it's been hit with an axe.

Carbon is as tough or as weak as you make it. My C456 was strong like ox- OK so all the finish fell off it, it looks like it's got excema but it wasn't weak.

http://flickr.com/gp/38306431@N05/9Do887

this was a bike roof rack meets garage door ...got repaired

gaffa tape repair?
[img] [/img]

I'm not sold on carbon either, not since I saw a guy at Wharncliffe sat sobbing as a Cornish pastie sized slab flicked up and trashed his downtube !

And to be honest what's a couple of hundred quid after throwing a £4 K lump on a bike, I don't want to point out the obvious but you've bought a budget carbon MTB !
Some one somewhere will have passed that design off fully expecting the bike to be stronger and lighter than the competition, but not really thinking about failure, I can't see the point in wrapping tin under a neoprene chain guard either as suggested above, I agree it would look shit but not only that it kind of renders the point of buying carbon ineffective ?

Or is it just me ?

Or is it just me ?

its just you

Just for balance - I drove under an arch with my bike on the top of the car. The arch caught the head tube of the bike, pulling the entire roof rack off the car and dragging it back over the roof. (I know...)

No damage to the bike at all, apart from some emulsion scraped onto the headtube. It's a carbon cube stereo 29er (140)...

Bike was in the middle of your bike rack? I wager that was where the damage occurred.

It's not acceptable for the bike to be damaged in a bike rack, sorry, but that's just a cop out. It's a mountain bike, it has to be robust and if it can't manage a trip in a bike rack, its just not good enough irrespective of what it's made out of.

Pedal damage from the next bike on your rack whilst on the car ?

That's what I was thinking. Maybe it was loaded a little loose, so you put in in carefully, and then when you went over a speedbump or something it got a clout from the other bike.

Anyway, OP - see if you can petition them [i]nicely[/i] for a reduced rate on the part seeing as it's such a new/nice bike. You'd think they would want to keep you as a customer?!

OP - I would go back to them, seems highly likely to be a manufacturing defect

I've been using carbon components on sailing boast for 15 years, it's super strong and you can have controlled flex but it's brtittle if damaged and prone to early failure as the manufacture can be less than scientific/unreliable. Also not all carbon is equal the strength varies greatly and the "higher modulus" ie stronger stuff is much more expensive

I personally would not buy a carbon bike frame.

I'm not sold on carbon either

Slightly odd statement when you were bleating on about how much you spend on bikes the other day!

Some one somewhere will have passed that design off fully expecting the bike to be stronger and lighter than the competition, but not really thinking about failure,

That's just a really stupid thing to say!

That is pretty poor, certainly looks like impact damage. I've heard bad things about Cube's warranty, you'd think given age they'd perhaps be a little more helpful. The credit card suggestion perhaps isn't a bad suggestion. Otherwise I'd definitely get that repaired, it'll be fine!

Slightly odd statement when you were bleating on about how much you spend on bikes the other day!

Quacking, surely?

I was waiting for the Santa Cruz video to be rolled out and offered up as proof positive that carbon frames are indestructible and metal frames are crap. Clearly their laboratory tests are not totally representative of real life. Yes, you can whack it into a concrete block, but what good is that if the chain stay can't survive a trip in a bike rack on your way to the ride site? A mate of mine has just trashed his 18 month Yeti 575. He's pretty tough on bikes as he likes to do a bit of trials stuff so is always whacking parts of the frame against rocks and denting the frame, but the metal part of the frame took the punishment fine. No beaks, no cracks. In the end it was the carbon rear triangle that failed. Doesn't quite stack up against the SC video. He's got a metal Nomad now.

[i]There was a ti frame on here a while back, a local rider dented and actually pierced a ti DT, from a bit of flint flicked up by his front wheel. A rigid 29er in the chilterns - hardly heavy use riding.[/i]

There's something about the Chilterns and Ti bikes...Seen a ti Inbred get a stick jammed in the rear mech and twist the hanger, friends Hummer snapped at the seat tube, the only...only place my Scandvik Hummer chainsucked was...

Weird.

Anyway, might not be a warranty, but still a bit shitty as a response for, as you say, a £4K bike

if you haven't banged it

go get it looked at by by an independant NDT/composites company if you do think you have a case for dodgy workmanship,

or tell the truth if you have banged it one and ask Cube nicely if they will do you a deal as you have a 4k bike without many miles on it

Some companies do crash warranties. They may not replace the frame FOC but will offer you one at a cut down price. Might be worth checking out

njee20, I'm not sure that carbon is a sign of expense, sure it costs a lot but that's of no significance to me as I would rather go with something that I trust and have found reliable riding on over two decades, the reason I'm not sold on it is because I have ridden my bike quite a bit and I often ride with others, the last couple of failures whilst out on the trail that stick in my mind have all related to carbon, to me that spells out a warning sign that before I spend my hard earned cash on something as fragile as a pedal bike I want it to be as strong as it possibly can, torsional rigidity, flex, and impact strike.

As for my really stupid statement, what can I say ! Except human error and incompatible design.
They get things wrong on multi million pound aircraft and trips to the moon why should a pedal bike be any different ?
Save for the fact that its built to a cost by the lowest bidder and mass produced ?

And as for the carbon Nomad that's been ridden for two years and been bench tested to within an inch of its life, it might have taken two ton beforet it failed and rather than the extrusion whipping off my b@ll@x like a scalpel in the aftermath of a big off I'd still rather have a bent frame over a snapped one.
But hey, if you want to believe the guys that sell 650b wheels to folk with a grudge against money then stand in line, they will quickly relieve you of your hard earned for producing a home made video of something that's been cobbled together in the lunch hour break !

Thats crap, really crap, that Cube wont replace under warranty.

I did something similar (drive side instead) to my Santa Cruz Blur XC (which I'd bought in the US & brought home with me) & Santa Cruz UK replaced it without charge..

I'm with the OP. The seatstays on my carbon Scott Genius failed a couple of weeks ago. The alu seatstays.

Bike was in the middle of your bike rack? I wager that was where the damage occurred.

impossible.. 99.9% of the time there is only one bike in the rack so there is nothing that can damage it. Having it in the middle allows for the 2 vertical uprights to be use to secure it.. instead of 1 if it were in either end slot..

Pedal damage from the next bike on your rack whilst on the car ?

On the odd occasion that there are 2 bikes in the rack.. they are put in the end slots so there is a good gap between them. The pedals don't go anywhere near the frames then. If there are 2 bikes in the rack.. which has only happened twice with this bike.. then this one was always put on first at the boot side of the rack..

That's what I was thinking. Maybe it was loaded a little loose, so you put in in carefully, and then when you went over a speedbump or something it got a clout from the other bike.

it cant be fitted loose. the tieddowns on the wheels are always rock solid when the bike is mounted and when the bike is taken off. If I am going on a long drive.. i double up the tiedowns just to be on the safe side..

if you haven't banged it

go get it looked at by by an independant NDT/composites company if you do think you have a case for dodgy workmanship,

or tell the truth if you have banged it one and ask Cube nicely if they will do you a deal as you have a 4k bike without many miles on it

If i had banged it.. i would fess up and pay for the damage.. If it was my fault I wouldn't have any issues with it..

Some companies do crash warranties. They may not replace the frame FOC but will offer you one at a cut down price. Might be worth checking out

At first they said I could only have a full crash replacement frame as they don't supply parts individually...
They have now offered to replace the faulty part only as a good will gesture.. cost £270

This is only the bottom arm.. not a full rear triangle or anything.. just the lower arm..

As far as I have experienced.. Cube's warranty isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

21 years ago i bought a steel rigid marin eldridge grade, it weighed 26lb.
fast forward and here we have full suss bikes with disc brakes that weigh the same (and less in some cases!)
is it possible that we are just finding the weight limit of a bicycle which can be used offroad?
my trusty old marin had numerous dents and scrapes over the 2 decades i used it, what finally did for it was rust.

gavstorie
it sounds
like you have
a warranty case.
Good luck,
man.

gavstorie
it sounds
like you have
a warranty case.
Good luck,
man.

You missed the bit where Cube have rejected the warranty case.

No I didn't, I mean - don't give up.

Its just bad luck it happened so early on, damage like that is as likely to happened on your first ride or 100th and on a £400 or £4k.

I'd look at the cost cost effective way of sorting it. If the bike rode well fix it/or replace the arm and keep it.

If it didn't decide if your going to sell it damaged or repair it then sell it.

Oh and sorry, sounds like its all a ballache.

I was waiting for the Santa Cruz video to be rolled out and offered up as proof positive that carbon frames are indestructible and metal frames are crap.

Clearly their laboratory tests are not totally representative of real life.

Yes, you can whack it into a concrete block, but what good is that if the chain stay can't survive a trip in a bike rack on your way to the ride site? A mate of mine has just trashed his 18 month Yeti 575.

He's pretty tough on bikes as he likes to do a bit of trials stuff so is always whacking parts of the frame against rocks and denting the frame, but the metal part of the frame took the punishment fine. No beaks, no cracks. In the end it was the carbon rear triangle that failed.

Doesn't quite stack up against the SC video. He's got a metal Nomad now.

Frame has a 5 year warranty, happy with that and confidence from SC that they didn't break a single frame in the world cup over 3 seasons

Lapierre replaced all the carbon chainstays in their 2014 spicy and zesty with aluminium versions....due to very similar issues.

21 years ago i bought a steel rigid marin eldridge grade, it weighed 26lb.
fast forward and here we have full suss bikes with disc brakes that weigh the same (and less in some cases!)
is it possible that we are just finding the weight limit of a bicycle which can be used offroad?

Mine is <22lbs (and not the lightest on here) and has taken plenty of abuse. Carbon front triangle is quite battered looking - no dents but decals and clearcoat coming off all over the place. I mentioned above which bit failed.

@ aracer, yeah ive heard of bikes that light before, they are amazing compared to the anchors i used to ride (which felt great at the time)
BITD <22lb would have been ok ish for a road bike.

Give HQ Fibre a bell regarding a repair.

Tom_W1987
Lapierre replaced all the carbon chainstays in their 2014 spicy and zesty with aluminium versions....due to very similar issues.

Sorry, no they didn't. They replaced the hybrid carbon/aluminum stays on 12/13 bikes with welded aluminum ones for 14 because they couldn't get a sufficiently robust production bond between the carbon stay tubes and the aluminium boss inserts that carry the articulation bearings. That has nothing to do with impact / bending failure midway down the stay as in this case.

Also i'd like to add: The OP suffered a failure on his carbon bike. That much we know. BUT without recreating the exact same event on an similar aluminium bike we simply don't know if the failure would have also occurred in that case. Most data suggests that CF can be more resilient to impact damage than aluminium (because it doesn't dent)

Most data suggests that CF can be more resilient to impact damage than aluminium (because it doesn't dent)

Not only that, but it's also less likely to suffer from fatigue failure (which is what I think happened to my seatstay - it was at any rate at a weld where a guide was attached) and despite popular perception is easier to repair - if my seatstay had been carbon I'd have almost certainly got it repaired.

To my mind this tale high lights something that has always been an issue with mountain bikes. They are expensive and quite fragile. I've never owned a really expensive bike. partly this is because it seems that you have top accept that at some point t will be break and be pricey to fix. I have an Al fs at the moment. It was a bargain bought lightly used. But its a liability as I would imagine any frame damage will be expensive to sort out.

I sympathise with the OP but I can see why Cube won't honour the warranty. They warranty against defects in manufacture. This is not a defect in manufacture even if it might be a design flaw