Winter Cycling - carbon fiber and below zero weather

for the first time since i can remember, the streets are spotless, dry, unobstructed by snow, they are totally clean of any snow!!

i've been itching to ride my road bike super bad, the kicker is that it has some carbon parts, namely the fork: what i am concerned about the most.

i would probably leave it locked up outside for an entire shift, temperatures will be well below freezing.


is this just uneducated carbon fiber paranoia (this might be quoted as the answer haha) or will the fork explode and ruin my day?

for the first time since i can remember, the streets are spotless, dry, unobstructed by snow, they are totally clean of any snow!!

i've been itching to ride my road bike super bad, the kicker is that it has some carbon parts, namely the fork: what i am concerned about the most.

i would probably leave it locked up outside for an entire shift, temperatures will be well below freezing.


is this just uneducated carbon fiber paranoia (this might be quoted as the answer haha) or will the fork explode and ruin my day?

A lot of people will say don't do it. Most of the people that I've seen post who seem genuinely knowledgeable about CF have said that it's not affected by cold.

The roads here are terrible and I won't attempt to ride my CF forked bike until April but I did ride it through November and some mornings it was down into the 20's and maybe even the teens. I wasn't worried about it in the least.

hmm, I never even thought about that as a problem. I keep my bike, with CF fork, stored outside in my unheated garage, temps getting down to below 0F, and I've ridden it in temps of 6 degrees F and never had a problem.

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is this just uneducated carbon fiber paranoia (this might be quoted as the answer haha) or will the fork explode and ruin my day?

Ha ha. Yes, it is.

I suppose it's a different compound, but CF hockey sticks seem to perform very well in the cold (I play once a week in a tent, and it's been relatively cold the last few weeks).

Of course, when they do fail, it is pretty spectacular :P

carbon fiber is fine in the cold. sheesh

about -50 to -100 you may want to watch out, until then ride normally

i actually decided to not ride it to work today.

i took it for a 20 minute spin around the neighborhood after work. the grease must have froze, my stem, pedals, crank and casette were stiff as hell. i would have been better off on a mountain bike

carbon fiber is fine in the cold. sheesh

about -50 to -100 you may want to watch out, until then ride normally

So in other words... Dont commute on it in Minnesota! :roflmao2:

Carbon fiber is really carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) the plastic being epoxy. Epoxy is a thermoset plastic that has a glass transition temperature higher then temperatures seen in real world conditions. Therefore, the epoxy is always in the brittle state so going colder is not going to make the CFRP part any more fragile.

I don't really like using this statement, but carbon fiber is also used in the A380.

airplanes get blasted with anti-freeze as well as encounter harsher conditions than on the ground.

The Dude is hardcore riding in below freezing temps.

im just trying to find those damn rug pissers!