fastpedaller wrote:pliptrot wrote:
But the fog of marketing and the lack of clarification about materials, processes, and so-on make most us suspicious. It is normal when someone is selling something with an advantage that they promote that advantage heavily. I have yet to see that with carbon fiber; weight aside.
From my perspective, the threat of a sudden breakage from CF would make me wary about buying one. The QC control is what matters, and how can one tell if the resin/fibre is as it should be, especially on critical regions like head tube/downtube? With a steel frame these regions are, of course, equally critical, but with a handbuilt frame and a skilled builder one would expect the joints to be good. The extended temperature tollerance of more recent tubing compared with say 531 possible suggests a failure is even less likely?
What sudden threat of breakage?
You're not one of those that thinks CF simply melts in the sun or breaks merely by giving it a dirty look are you? In some instances carbon fibre is far more resilient than steel, alu or titanium, in a front on incident I'd rather have carbon forks/frame than steel or alu.I presume you've seen this right? I'm glad I have a MTB grade gravel/touring/do whatever frameset, it's the same grade CF as that used by the World Championship winning XC bike 10 years back.
Having bunfortunately been on the wrong end of a hit and run and other motorists induced incidents none of the CF components or CF frame parts managed to break. I just go by my own personal experience of using the material on an almost every day basis over the last 11 years.
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