I have a specialized allez road bike that is now about 12 years old and came with carbon forks - they look ok but does the hivemind of STW have a view on how long carbon forks are safe for use - or are my mates jokes about me needing new front teeth shortly completely off the mark?
If they were steel, would you be worried about the fatigue life of the welds? If they were aluminium, would you be worried about the long term life of the bonding between the blades and crown?
Carbon is extremely fragile even when new.
Once it's passed 1yr...
😉
they aren't either of those things though, they're carbon.
12 years old, bet there not even fully carbon 😐
I have the definitive answer for you, however you said 'hive mind' so I'm not going to give it to you.
Let that be a lesson to never use that ****y phrase again.
they aren't either of those things though, they're carbon.
True enough - (I think! 😉 my point was that the user doesn't have enough info to make an informed/scientific decision on the life of the component regardless of the material, so unless the manufacturer has set a 'recommended replacement interval' then how can you khow if you should worry or not?
I loved that carbon repairer's comments the other day
"if it looks OK it probably is" or some such.
So much for x-rays etc...
I think new forks come with a 5 year advisory note (according to same mate who was taking the mick) - mine didnt though.
Re different materials I guess most of us look at the welds a bit when we are giving the bike a clean and you can probably spot if something is breaking, carbon I am not so sure - the outside looks ok but the inside I cannot tell - also the manner of break is somewhat different.
I do also wonder how good carbon fibre was 12 years ago, its good enough for fighter planes and F1 cars and stuff now but I suspect the manufacturers have come a long way in that time, they have used their hive mind 🙄
I've got some PACR RC36 Evo forks which are still working ok after 15 years...
i have a pair of ancient rc31s
they are delaminating
they have had water ingress into the laminate at the crown / carbon interface
where do you think they gave when i rode them into a tree belting along .....
Carbon bikes have been made since the late 80s. I think other carbon stuff has been around a lot longer.
There is no catalogue of frames suddenly breaking after a certain period of time.
Stop worrying.