Gotta get them before they get us.

Yeah, we're actually at the point where 10-15yr old carbon bikes are cheap enough to consider using as (lock up) commuters. The perception of value plays a huge part in why older carbon bikes haven't caught on as commuters in NYC.

It's not that someone will cut the lock, it'll just be a bigger target for thieves to pick components off of. Like you I hardly ever carbon bikes locked up but there must be 100s of fancy steel/alu bikes attached to racks across the city every day.

For roughly 2/3 of the year, maybe slightly less I commute on an aluminum cross bike with 28 mm tires. The rest of the year I commute to work on a carbon fiber bike with 23 mm tires. I like both bikes but the carbon fiber bike does cut the commute from roughly 42 min to about 37 min. Sometimes I'm faster and sometimes slower, but usually the carbon bike is about 5 - 8 min faster.

One thing that I find interesting is that on days when I'm on the carbon bike and riding along at say 25 km/hr that guys will blow by me and try to race me. Sometimes if I feel like it I'll up the pace, chase and see what they have left in the tank. Other times I just go my speed and perhaps raise my speed to say 28 to 30 km/hr. Most times I'll eventually catch the guy who passed me.

I don't get this on the aluminum bike. I wear the same clothing on both bikes, but if I ride the carbon and wear a team jersey like Saxo Bank or HTC Columbia it's almost guaranteed I'll have someone try to race me. Most of the time I can resist the bait, but often I cannot.

I used to time my commute when cycling on a hybrid while wearing a book filled backpack. That bike got stolen. I next, purchased a much lighter road bike and no longer needed my backpack.

Suddenly, I began shaving approximately 7 minutes off my commute. It's just got to be the extra weight!

PS.

Ah.....

Just for future reference...

Drop 'em all!

At the risk of derailing this fine and important thread, I still see adequate slack on that RD cage. Hopefully the guy is already at the big enough of his cassette, though.

LOL - Sometimes I don't feel like it, but there have been a few times when I've gone full gas and I can't catch the guy. Doesn't happen often but I'm almost 50 now so I've slowed a fair bit. There was a guy the other day who flew by me and he was on a flat bar road bike and it was really hard to catch the guy. I had to chase hard and it took me over 2 km's to catch the guy. After I caught him we were waiting at a red light, but he jumped away when the light was still red. I wasn't going to do that so I waited for the green and again I caught him, but it was hard work!

A huge percentage of carbon fiber products I'm familiar with(I'm not counting a .5mm thick sheet rolled around plastic here) aren't disposable, they're stuff people hold onto for decades. I wonder how much of a deal disposal is.

During the course of human evolution, and within the realm of geological time, a decade is more like a millisecond. If normal decay and elemental decomposition does not take place, environmental accumulation is inevitable.

For decades, we've been haphazardly and nonchalantly tossing plastics into our streets, rivers, and country sides. Simultaneously, our naval and maritime ships have been dumping all forms of waste into our oceans. Many things dumped did not decompose. Especially things like plastics: Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Ocean Pollution Awareness - YouTube

All we need now, is too add spent carbon fiber bicycle frames to our already too large pile of non-disposables.

So yeah, the deal is quite "Big"....

I'm referring to carbon fiber specifically, not trash in general.

Yeah, but everyone has their own little specific item that will not decompose. Each item is specific unto itself, until it becomes conjoined with other little specific items. Next thing you know, you've got megatons of non-disposable crap, just hanging around within our environment.

It's up to us Sullalto, to take care of our own home, planet earth!

I just put it in a burn barrel when I'm done with it.

Aren't you the same guy I saw throwing McDonald's trash out of your car window yesterday?

During the season I will ride my Ridley to work. Lucky to have access to a bike locker.

I would never litter. That is gauche.