i've tried a carbon fork and liked it fine, but my opinion is that i don't avoid carbon on principal alone, or for fear of failure, but simply because i'm too cheap. i'll probably own some carbon parts at some point, but like any new technology you have to wait until the market is saturated for the prices to come down to reasonable levels. plus, i don't know of many carbon forks made with fender eyelets, except for a few in the UK where they know all about rain.