@ BikeLockHolmes,

I'm glad YOU enjoy YOUR bike and I hope you continue to enjoy it for years to come.

Regarding your assertions about the differences between frames, a couple quick questions:

Have you ever done destructive testing on any carbon frames? Have you even seen how two frames from the same run can fail at drastically different points and under vastly different load or cycles? That's not usually a good sign.

Have you ever cut stuff open to see how well the lay-up was executed and what the inside of the tubes looked like? How the resin had flowed? Or if perhaps cores or bladders had shifted in the mold causing uneven areas or imbalances in the cooked carbon? Seen voids?

Have you ever been involved in manufacturing and seen how many steps are involved and how much labour is needed to produce a good? Most involve many unseen steps that deal with minor details that, collectively, affect the consistency of the final product.

Have you seen how many bakes, at what temps, for what durations carbon frames go through and wondered how consistant that was or if perhaps frames were removed from the mold a bit too early each time to increase the capcity of the mold by one more frame a day messing up the alignment?

Or wondered how well the prepreg was stored? At what temps? Or if it was cut with the correct bias or if shortcuts were taken to reduce the amount of wasted prepreg? Or wondered how closely the factory followed the expiry dates on their prepreg?

If you had done any of these it might give you pause to wonder is there is more to making a carbon frame than materials and lay up schedule.

I completely agree with you that most of these things can be leaned and copied by those Chinese factories that decide to steal intellectual property and knock off frames. The real issue is executing all of these tiny steps correctly and consistently, with an annual labour turn over pushing 20%.

I look forward to your thoughts.