akexpress 

There has been a lot of discussions about frame materials and repairability after damage. Typically this evolves to travel tandems and getting to some place far away from home and the bike being damaged and unridable. So really this tread is a survey to actually find out how often this happens. I will start with my take on this issue. We are fortunate and cursed to have traveled with our tandem extensively. Cursed in that we live in Alaska and have to fly everywhere and fortunate that we have have taken our tandem all over the world. I think our tandem has been in and out of the cases on airplanes at least 25 times in the last 5 years. We have had exactly 0 damage save a few paint rubs. We have been on 5 Santana trips for a total of about 316 teams traveling with their tandems so about 632 single trips considering these require round trips. Plus we have done quite a few private trips with a smaller group of 5 teams. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever had any damage in transit again save the occasional paint rub. The greater fear is the lost luggage issue and I know of one tandem last year that was lost in flight and never recovered. With modern cases like the S&S cases, comotion hybrid cases and Santana cases the bikes are will protected. I would like to hear any actual damage history, because short of that I don't think it matters what your bike is made of you should not worry and ride what you want and like. FWIW we own two coupled tandems a carbon Calfee and a steel 29r Ventana mtn tandem and have the same experience with both. I am careful but not obsessive when packing and can pack either one in about and hour. both have padding custom cut and marked for location and remove all tires for packing. Each case gets 1/2 the bike and 1 wheel.