Originally Posted by
MrCrassic
I disagree with this. There are plenty of instances where carbon fiber frames get trashed in that a metal frame would survive. There are some carbon fiber frames that hold up very, very well and aluminum frames that hold up very, very poorly, but I believe that this is the general case.
In my last car/bike accident, where two of us were T-boned, my LOOK carbon frame came out unscathed, but the other rider's Klein aluminum folded like a beer can. I can show you pictures of a Litespeed Ti frame where the CF fork survived, but the head tube was sheared off at the welds.
I've been riding carbon frames in three other wrecks and never damaged the frame. In one, I hit a car, but got the bike turned, so it wasn't a T-bone and the other two were slide-outs. In all those wrecks, my body suffered the damage, not the frame.
There are no "general" cases in wrecks.