Roberts is fantastic. I had a carbon frame repair done a few years ago. It's unfortunate that most damaged carbon frames are going into landfill \(or retired as wall art\), when they're fully repairable. Seems there's good opportunity for a thriving repair industry. Retiring carbon frames before their time makes me feel extra ungood about the environmental impact of the material.
As to Moritz's concerns - I'm of the opinion that some carbon bike manufacturers are building too light for reasonable expectations of longevity \(in regards to aggressive trail / enduro rigs; assumed fragility is an acceptable trade-off in the xc realm\). Tubes with silly thin cross sections \(ie, you can visibly depress with thumb pressure\) that, while capable of handling typical riding forces just fine, can get holed by merely falling over onto a hard surface. carbon is light stuff, i'm sure the weight added to ensure acceptable impact durability wouldn't be \*that\* significant. of course, though you may end up with a frame that's significantly stronger than alu, the primary sales floor feature \(lack of mass\) is eroded.
That said, I think builders should be playing more to carbon's ability to create unique forms - unlocking design opportunities not possible with metal shapes - rather than re-creating alu frames in carbon and trying to convince us that a more fragile frame that's 1lb lighter is somehow worth a ~$1k surcharge.
May 23, 2018, 9:48 a.m. - Perry Schebel
Roberts is fantastic. I had a carbon frame repair done a few years ago. It's unfortunate that most damaged carbon frames are going into landfill \(or retired as wall art\), when they're fully repairable. Seems there's good opportunity for a thriving repair industry. Retiring carbon frames before their time makes me feel extra ungood about the environmental impact of the material. As to Moritz's concerns - I'm of the opinion that some carbon bike manufacturers are building too light for reasonable expectations of longevity \(in regards to aggressive trail / enduro rigs; assumed fragility is an acceptable trade-off in the xc realm\). Tubes with silly thin cross sections \(ie, you can visibly depress with thumb pressure\) that, while capable of handling typical riding forces just fine, can get holed by merely falling over onto a hard surface. carbon is light stuff, i'm sure the weight added to ensure acceptable impact durability wouldn't be \*that\* significant. of course, though you may end up with a frame that's significantly stronger than alu, the primary sales floor feature \(lack of mass\) is eroded. That said, I think builders should be playing more to carbon's ability to create unique forms - unlocking design opportunities not possible with metal shapes - rather than re-creating alu frames in carbon and trying to convince us that a more fragile frame that's 1lb lighter is somehow worth a ~$1k surcharge.