I didn't say that carbon fiber makes up a "huge percentage" of the market. I said "The vast majority of bicycles, especially modern ones, are aluminum with carbon coming up fast." Aluminum bikes have outsold the steel market...not including BigBoxStores and youth bikes...for the better part of 2 decades now. People are more like to have had experience riding a good quality aluminum bike then they are to have ridden a quality steel bike.

High quality steel bikes aren't all that common and even the low end HelMart bikes are edging more towards aluminum than steel. As for steel "coming back", there are a few but, by and large, aluminum has most of the market and carbon is pushing aluminum out at a fairly good pace. Not all carbon bikes cost $10,000. Specialized sells a hardtail carbon bike for $2500 which is not a bad price for a middle of the range mountain bike. They also sell a $1600 carbon road bike which is definitely within the middle of the price range for a quality bike, especially considering that the lowest priced road bike in their line is $750.

Any steel resurgence is limited to retrogrouches...young and old. The rest of the world has moved on.

No, Specialized has not been "middle range" for most of their history. They were, and are, cutting edge. The Stumpjumper was the first production mountain bike in 1983. It was a high end bike that was rather expensive for the day and quite radical as well. Their mountain bikes were ridden to many World Championships and could be purchased by us regular joes. Their bikes have always been good quality. And, considering that they have seemed to have outlasted Bridgestone by about 25 years, they have been doing something that is successful. Or, maybe, their customers are just stupid

Look at the picture again. There is a stub of downtube that is painted white sticking out of the lug on the frame. That means that the tube broke outside of the lug. As to the tube being butted, I don't know if it was or not. That said, even if it were butted, the thicker end of the butt is at the lug so that it can take the heat of brazing without the tubing being damaged. The thinner part of the tube is further away from the lug than the stub shown in the picture.

The Reynolds frame with the broken seattube broke above the lug as well. That is the thickest part of the tubing set.

But, more to the point, you have said that steel frames don't break like that. Obviously they do. I've seen other instances as well. My steel frames have broken suddenly and without warning.

Neither would be something that I would ride. Both are unsafe and to continue riding one would be to invite disaster.

How do you know I've never seen a frame failure? I've seen lots of them. I work at a bike co-op and have seen bikes that have been run into garages, been hit by cars, been dropped off cars and just plain failed. Overall, frame failures are fairly rare but they can happen to any material. Carbon and aluminum don't have a lock on failure at joints either...as can be seen in the first picture I linked to.

Yes, we do.

And I've had steel frames and a fork fail on me. I haven't had that happen with carbon forks nor with mostly aluminum suspension forks. Nor, for that matter, have I had that many frame failures ...even when considering that I've experienced 4 of them. That's 4 failures out of 38 bikes. Two of the failures were due to poor materials...my first mountain bike, and a very early model at that, that was under built for the application and had a history of failure which included that single fork and one mountain bike that was made of a material that couldn't stand up to the rigors of the sport. One of the failures was because I was using a seatpost with too much setback that stressed the seattube...which is my fault. And I had one bike fail because I was using it as a mountain bike when it really wasn't designed for that.

I haven't experience any frame problems with the other 34 bikes and I'm not too worried about the quality of the 9 I currently have. I ride them and they do the job. Most of them are going to do a better job than my first mountain bike.

And I'm here to tell people that it's not something to lose a lot of sleep over. Yes, a frame can break. It's just unlikely. Even with all the experience I've had with broken frames...which is more than most people experience...I'm not all that concerned about a frame breaking no matter what the material used in construction.

I don't currently own a carbon bike. I don't know if I'll ever own a carbon bike. I've held off carbon for the same reason I held off dual suspension bikes. I was waiting until the technology is a bit older and better developed. It's there now and I wouldn't have any qualms about owning one just as I don't have qualms about the carbon forks on the bikes I own.