April 8, 2015, 11:25 a.m. -  Pete Roggeman

#!markdown Doug, "don't be a crash test dummy for slack bike companies" didn't leave much doubt about what you were saying. I didn't put the words in your mouth - you did. But if that's not what you meant, I'll consider that retracted. I do agree that it's not important who made the actual mistake - it says Yeti on the downtube and it's their responsibility in the end. Any affiliations you'd like to be up front about? Do you own a shop that sells Commencal? (why yes, yes you do: <http://www.blackpeakcycles.com>). Did you know that Commencals were breaking left and right just a few years ago? Whistler is littered with splinters of Commencal carbon. Bikes break, just like the windows in glass houses. Every reputable company out there tests well in excess of CE standards, because "500,000 cycles" are only telling if they are useful cycles and a lot of CE test standards are not all that useful. For example handlebar tests that don't replicate the way that bars are pulled and pushed in a rider's hands. Does that still test for durability? Yes, just not in the right way. This is shaping up to be an article in the future. Thank you for getting me to think about it. It's unfortunate you had so many breakage issues, and there's no doubt that riders like yourself who took a chance on carbon when it was still relatively new in an MTB application often paid a price (that includes me - my original Ibis Mojo fell prey to a similar issue). And let's face it - it's still fairly new tech. However the carbon manufacturing overseas is not only the cheapest - it's also the best. Ask any product manager or designer/engineer and they'll tell you that the "who know's who"s in Asia are doing it better than the "who know's who"s elsewhere.