Originally Posted by
grolby
BS. Aircraft with intended service lives of 25-30 years are designed with carbon fiber in major structures.
People like to say this, but there's little in the way of solid support for it. Lots of old CF bikes around that are holding up fine.
And give it a bit of thought - most broken frames are older. Frames subjected to harsh enough fatigue cycles and big hits will break eventually, no matter what they're made of. There are now enough old frames that happen to be CF that, yes, you'll start to see more broken CF bikes. That's exactly what you would expect to see.
I always chuckle when I see comments about CF not lasting on bikes, knowing that the aircraft industry is the biggest user. Bikes barely put a dent in compared to what aircraft go through.
As for failures, I always believe it is the workmanship (or lack thereof) at the joints or internal lugs that are prone to failure, not the carbon itself. I speak from experience on this point. I crashed my first carbon frame and it cracked where the internal lug pressed into the top tube.