Originally Posted by dddd

Carbon fiber had long been touted for it's higher damping coefficient than metals, which implies that the ride is better. But the damping coefficient of carbon fiber or CFRP is actually extremely low as compared to any kind of decent suspension unit, so far more of any flex/vibration energy still gets absorbed by the tires and rider at either end of the carbon frameset structure than gets absorbed into the frameset.
And carbon's damping coefficient only goes down as the performance rating (strength and stiffness-to-mass) of the carbon increases.
In the end, I believe carbon forks and frames are stiffer these days than steel framesets of the past, so most of any significant flex and damping has to come from larger, softer tires, which makes claims as to carbon's supposed increased damping sort of specious. Certainly carbon can be made with layers of different materials and bias angles, but not so much the case when lowest weight is sought.
So if wider tires can be aerodynamically streamlined with the right sort of lightweight rims and frameset, and at low weight and modest cost, perhaps the modern bicycle can be a better mousetrap. Some would say that it already is, but realistically the price of the good, light ones tends to be very high.