Carbon. Makes you stop and think.

I know I keep going on, but what’s happened to my kit has made me re assess my views on carbon.
After my prang I’m left with carbon parts that have either bit the dust, or been left in an unknown condition.
Further to this, there are five bikes in our club that are out of action due to failure in their carbon frames (2 x Pinarello, 1 x Time, 1 x Boardman and 1 x Planet X)
And talking to business owner yesterday lead me to believe that cheaper carbon frames and wheels are disposable items?

That said carbon will still have a place on my bikes, but for race day only. And for training I’m planning to return to either steel or alloy.

Agreed – a few weeks back Nath snapped a Yeti 575 up Woburn – he was borrowing it from a friend at the time!

Pic in following thread:

Nath’s snapped Yeti 575

That’s the third Yeti I’ve seen go at Woburn. Clearly modern technology is no match for the rural pastures of Woburn.

my mates yeti 575 snapped during a climb 😀 they were badly designed it would seem – 3rd in the club to go.

my mates flx3000 died falling over onto a log – anothers foot rubbed through the rear stay on his flx5000

another friends carbon zaskar failed at seat tube

but equally had friends with ti frames fail , had steel fail on me and aluminium fail catastrophically and unexpectedly twice.

~I dont think its the material necessarily that driving up the failure frequency – its the quest for low weight and in most cases low price – somethings got to give !

Interesting, the Yeti frame hasn’t failed as such but the bonding in the rear triangle to keep the drop outs in, has…..

I’m loving my Ibis, its just survived a few days Freeride Finale Ligura and though that doesn’t mean its not doing to be pile of dust tomorrow, its brilliant. I have a glass half full attitude to it until it collapses. My main worry is chain suck causing wear on the rear triangle, or scuffs when its loaded in my van. Its taped up but still needs a bit of care.

The bonding on the swingarm of my Yeti failed too – the pivot end not the drop-outs
So not really a carbon issue per se but still a failure because of the need to bond the carbon on to alloy

It was 3 years old and Yeti replaced it with the latest full carbon arm within a few days

Carbon – never have never will!

I’ve actually had more steel frames break, three in fact but I have had far more many steel frames in my lifetime.
The thing with the steel failures, was that they gave notice, there were never any ifs and maybes – they were either broken or not and finally they could all be repaired.
Never ever had an alloy frame go, never seen one either.

Never ever had an alloy frame go, never seen one either

You’ve led a sheltered life. I’ve seen loads – three of my own, seen countless more when working at bike shop and several at races…

I’ve broken nearly every Alu (MTB) frame I’ve ever had including a Whyte which is now on its 4th front triangle and 3rd swing arm. I’ve done for a couple of steel ones too over the years. But my two carbon bikes – one road, one MTB – are doing fine so far. None of which is close to establishing any kind of pattern.

When carbon snaps it’s because it’s carbon. When metal snaps it’s because we’re riding gods who’ve taken it beyond the extreme! 😈

I know I keep going on

At last the penny drops

I fear my Ti frame snapping more than the carbon forks with carbon steerer which are attached to it.
Not sure why I feel this way, but I do.

If it’s going to happen it doesn’t really matter the material it’s made from.

You’ve not been looking hard then. I’ve seen some catastrophic alu failures, and some carbon bits crack ‘nicely’. I think you’re over reacting myself, the problem isn’t the material, it’s your perception of it. You feel that you’d be safer on a steel or alu frame, which is in part what matters, but it doesn’t necessarily change anything!

If it were me I’d have build the carbon one back up and be back riding it ASAP. In fact that’s what I did, after a bigger crash, and it was fine. It could have broken a couple of months later, but so could anything else!

However, the big thing is your confidence in it, and if that would be greater with a steel frame, go nuts!

my only issue is that when you have a big stack [ like the OP] it is not possible to see if there is an issue. I suspect with metal you would see something – folds, bends whatever.
Everything can break but metal is more likely [ not certain] to show warnings before this.

rickmeister- you could fit a chain guide like the blackspire stinger if running 2 rings up front and compatible with frame, this will then guard against chain suck or theirs the tomac chain suck guard. I got a yeti asr 5, they used to go at the back but apparently ok now, I don’t worry as theirs a 5 year warranty which will be about aslong as I own it. All materials will fail at some point it just seems that either Ti or carbon are talked a lot more.

I’ve broken a steel frame, an Aluminum one Carbon one is still OK mind so are the 4 other alloy and 1 steel one.
Did just have a carbon stem which was developing 4 worrying cracks which were not far off joining up.

FWIW, I’ve never broken a carbon frame. I have broken several steel and aluminium

(this fact may be affected by me never having owned a carbon frame 🙂 )

My Yeti is 5 years old. No bonding (or snapping) issues with the carbon.
Singletrackmind’s carbon Proflex is a 1999 model, no problems.
Maybe we ain’t jumpy enough!

I better not crash my road bike though eh?!

If you steer it back to road bikes, then surely steel is almost invincible?
On the road I’ve only seen carbon go. And obviously with five fellow club members all without their bikes at the moment my views are being swayed.
But as it stands I’d stay with carbon for my race bike.
Have a cheap alloy for training, and see it as disposable.
Or a half decent steel for training, and see that as repairable,

Still want a wippet though! But then theres an extra lb of carbon over the lightest frames.

‘ve broken nearly every Alu (MTB) frame I’ve ever had including a Whyte which is now on its 4th front triangle and 3rd swing arm.

Proper Triggers broom that!!! Your user name should be hippo. 😉

Been using carbon handlebars/seatpost/frame for years with no problems.

After years of riding steel, alu, ti and carbon bikes; I have deduced that carbon is no good for hand wringers.

Noticed Yeti have redesigned the swingarm for the latest 575 in just about the area that their first set of carbon swingarms were failing.

I managed to break an Alu and a Ti frame within the space of a month last year, but my carbon road bike is still going strong.

On the road I’ve only seen carbon go.

Is that because most road bikes now are made of carbon? It’s actually quite rare now to see an alu, steel or Ti frame, I’d say the majority are carbon so you’re proportionally more likely to see failures.

There’s nothing wrong with the material – it’s used in aircraft and F1 cars and the impacts they take are massively more than a bike should ever see. It’s HOW it’s used that’s the issue. Remember in the early days of alu when Cannondale (in particular) were experimenting with ever thinner tube walls and ever wider tubes? How do you think they got the Crack’n’Fail name?! Thing is back then there weren’t internet forums for people to bitch about their broken alu frames and how they’d never consider anything other than steel in future…

my training bike is a Ti lynskey and has never given me a single problem. Builds to low 15pound mark… Hardly heavy and very comfy to ride all day…

I race a C59.. Lovely bike…

I am going to buy a Condor steel crit frame as and when they are released. C59 is far to nice to risk in a crit crash!!

The redesigned Ibis road bike looks nice. I would defo trust Ibis and their carbon skills.

If you steer it back to road bikes, then surely steel is almost invincible?

I’ve broken two steel road frames.

Why would you have a carbon bike for racing? Genuine question, bearing in mind i know nothing about road bikes.
Are carbon frames that much lighter, stiffer etc than an equivalent priced aluminum?

I am glad that only the front end of my mountain bike is carbon; the rear end to me doesn’t seem like a good place to be using carbon (on my bike, that is). There are two many pivots and spindly bits – I would be concerned about the durability of it, particularly with respect to bonding of the various parts.
Bikes like the Whyte E-120 with the large one piece swingarm on the other hand look more like they were designed for carbon from the outset.

I’ve broken a steel road frame – cracked at chainstay weld.
I’ve broken an aluminium road frame – crashed and bent the (non-replaceable) dropout.

Not broken a carbon one (but then I’ve only had it 8 months 🙂 )

that’s my point Dezb damage you could see and then stop riding them rather than carry on and have a catastrophic failure

Did you see Arvesen’s crash in the Vuelta yesterday?

His lovely Pinarello was in about 5 pieces and he was bleeding from all of his limbs. They gave him a new bike and he carried on. Animal!

that’s my point Dezb damage you could see and then stop riding them rather than carry on and have a catastrophic failure

Except that contrary to popular perception, carbon doesn’t generally fail catastrophically without some warning sign or previously visible damage. I’ve actually kept on riding a visibly damaged carbon frame for almost a year – keeping a good idea on the damaged bit and not seeing any sign of propagation.

and the warning signs are what then? – not a troll seriously what

The visible damage, I guess

The only carbon part on my mtb is the headset spacer….

I hope all you carbon-doubters don’t fly in modern jet airlines when you take your aluminium or steel framed bikes to the alps. That would be very ironic.

I hope all you carbon-doubters don’t fly in modern jet airlines when you take your aluminium or steel framed bikes to the alps. That would be very ironic.

Yeah, because it’s exactly the same stuff.

Largely actually that’s irrelvant. The key thing there is actually that the life time is very well understood and logged and also NDT is available which most cyclists don’t really have access to…

But carbon-doubting is just silly IMO though don’t let me stop you 😉

Your user name should be hippo.

No need to rub it in.
Where do you live? I might come round and sit on you ’til you say sorry.

The key thing there is actually that the life time is very well understood and logged and also NDT is available which most cyclists don’t really have access to…

In exactly the same way cyclists don’t have access to those sort of facilities for their alu frames. I don’t think Comets were made of cf…

I had Pace forks which were rubbish and broke a lot.

But not because the lowers were made of carbon…