As much as I dislike carbon fiber as currently implemented by the bicycling industry (so should you) Carleton has a point. Carbon fiber is stronger than steel. Much stronger, much lighter and incredibly safe. That of course is given a perfect world where extremely high quality plastics are used in state of the art manufacturing facilities by people who truly know what they are doing with laying up the fiber and what have you along with little things commonly called research and development and quality control departments (the bicycling industry calls these customers). In this perfect case, carbon fiber spanks steel with its' pants down around its' ankles. As currently implemented in the bicycling industry, carbon fiber is sickening.