If you notice, these are all bikes from the '80s. I was a Cat 2 racer back then and rode 7-8,000 miles a year (still do). At that time, I weighed 145# and am 5'7". In all fairness, these bikes were involved in several crashes a year. The Nishikis especially were easy to break. We were sponsored by Nishiki for two years and broke every bike we were given.

For the record, I own a new steel tandem and a steel fixie, two high end carbon bikes, and an AL cross bike. I'm not fussy about frame materials and other than having my 2005 Roubaix Pro lose its BB sleeve in 2011, haven't broken a frame in at least 15-20 years.

My wife had one of the Sears Free Spirits from that period, also. Hers was sort of a maroon color if I remember. Anyway, the fork blades folded sideways one time when she fell and I bent them back by hand so she could keep riding. I bought her a very nice Fuji not long after that.

Yes. Criterium racing.

Mine was white with the red/blue striping. After two years it got repainted due to rust and scratches - I used medium blue metallic acrylic lacquer left over from painting my dad's '68 Olds...

Oh, and like your wife, my Free Spirit's replacement was my first Fuji as well - an orange '74 Special Tourer. That one got stolen from my high school three months later, and replaced with the same model/color and just 17 serial numbers off - F9B18529 replaced with F9B18546. Don't ask why I remember that. It is just how I am... Two years later I upgraded to the late '74-built, '75 model year S-10S that I still have today.

Thanks for adding the context to those reported frame failures. Now I know more about you and your riding, and can understand how you went through so many steel framed bikes: you were/are a hard as nails rider competing at high levels of racing and crashing and training.

Racing/excessive high end riding is simply hard on bikes, and I guess that was the point of the article: Some frames used in the racing context present greater dangers to their riders when they fail due to the material's likelihood to produce sharp edged shards when crashed, and prospective owners should be made aware. Even the excepted quote from that article presented in an earlier post does not sound like a resounding endorsement of cf frames, when the person, a leader in cf tech, being quoted said risks should be minimal if not racing. Not absent, but minimal, i.e. the risks are always there. Guess that could be said for all frames, true, but how they break is the issue in the article.

I too have a crashed Nishiki tale: hit a car, t-bone fashion, doing 30 mph. Flew over the hood of the car, launched some 15 feet in the air and landed some 35 feet down the road on my back..still feel the whiplash almost daily 28 years later. The bike's front wheel was pushed back into the pedals, the head tube went from a 73 to a 90 degree angle, but the cromoly frame/fork only bent. It did no snap/break at any point. I miss that bike.

Where was the breakage, crack or what?

Which bike?

Oh yes....the Trek 460. Frankly, I am surprised you chose that bike to race. I loved my 460 but if I raced a criterium that wouldnt have been my bike. I had a 54cm that flexed terribly.

That one was converted to a cross bike by brazing cantilever studs on the fork and frame. Down tube broke at the BB joint. Bike got a lot of abuse. A friend of mine's kid used it as a quasi-mtb for awhile. Heaven knows what he did with it.

I just looked at an old pic taken at CX Nats in 1989. It's covered with mud but it may actually be a 420. Can't make it out for sure. Also looks like it has regular brakes but I know my shop brazen canti studs on to it.

You have to remember and admit as I have posted before these bikes are really just plastic bikes. I know the adherents dont like this fact but they are. The true fact is so called carbon fiber bikes really are carbon fiber reinforced plastic.

Manuf probably go nuts when I say this, but it is a fact. Why they dont like this is the fact they are making tons of money on CF bikes, and money talks. Manuf have convinced all the sheep that the only good bike is a CF bike. Do I care if people buy CF bikes, not at all. All I say is a a fool and his money are soon parted. International bike race teams can afford to just throw away a plastic bike, but they are going to cost an individual wannabe racer big bucks when his plastic wonder bike shatters.

Me neither! At least I know I'm not the only one now.

If you read BF enough you'd think frames of all types asplode without warning all the time. Maybe I'm not dialing up enough watts.

I've only ever owned steel or aluminum bikes.
-Not advocating any frame material, just adding that for anecdotal evidence purposes.

I'm sorta guessing the small collection of racing bikes I currently own have not been rode hard enough to crack or break.

2014 is not old news and the article is in no way stupid.
Is is informative, mostly impartial and well sourced.
I personally see no reason not to buy a CF bike if that is what floats your boat. I just have issue with the CF Kool-Aid drinkers who dispense bad advice to other uninformed consumers looking for input.

Greve and Perovic agreed that for consumers who are not constantly banging their bikes around on team vehicles and who are unlikely to be involved in crashes, the risks in buying a carbon bike made by a reputable company should be minimal. Greve said many riders had told him that the performance gains from superlight frames reached the point of diminishing returns long ago, and he questions the wisdom of consumers’ buying what are, in effect, very costly throwaway items if they crash.

I believe the above quote is very hard to dispute and sums up things nicely.

I disagree.

The article in question is old news, and has been discussed repeatedly in this place.

The article in question is stupid because its major -- and only -- substantive assertion is one no one in their right mind would question: that bicycle frames and forks used hard within a racing environment, especially at the pro level, banged around and crashed etc., can and do break on occasion. Eugène Christophe discovered this in 1913, to give but one example. The rest -- the passage you quote for example -- is tendentious opinion, nothing more. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but that's all it is.

Incorrect

1) Not sure why you keep referencing how often the topic has been discussed. This a discussion forum. Every topic has been discussed and will continue to be discussed many many times. There are multiple discussions on oatmeal. What's your point?
2) There is more than one major and valid assertion. How about diminishing returns? How about the current quality control concerns?
3) Break on occasion? Seriously? Did you not actually read the article? How about break regularly

This thread was people being silly and lighthearted, until ...

"Greve said many riders had told him that the performance gains from superlight frames reached the point of diminishing returns long ago ... " So .... a bunch of pros said they thought heavier frames were just as good? Yeah, I totally believe that. I bet they also said they think throwing away their empty bidons is a hugwe waste of money ....They only do it to seem cool like the rest of the riders ....

"and he questions the wisdom of consumers’ buying what are, in effect, very costly throwaway items if they crash." So ... he questions the value of buying bikes which can be ruined in wrecks? Good thought. No bike = no wreck.

Everyone who is honest knows that a steel frame will survive a major wreck better than a CF frame. The steel frame Might even be repairable---and the cost of the repairs might not exceed the value of the frame. Everyone knows that repairing Al is a lot harder. And since the only reason anyone would ever buy or ride a bike is to wreck it really hard and repair it ... obviously steel is better.

Let's sum up: OP has an irrational hatred for a bicycle frame material---than in itself seems to warrant professional attention. (Imagine if I posted about the evils of brick versus wooden or cinder-block homes---even the people who liked wood and cinder block would think I needed help.)

OP finds an old article about some guy who met some pro riders once. OP posts it to support his irrational hatred.

OP ignores the part where even the biased authors say CF frames are fine for most riders, and really only break a lot when facing the abuse of WorldTour riding. (Don't ever wqtch auto racing---you think bikes break a lot ....

All the rest of the irrational CF haters "prove" that their favorite frame material is "better" because when used in ways which wouldn't cause failure in any bike, there were no failures---or, when abused, the damage was repairable---again, since wrecking and repairing is the point of riding, this is a telling point ... for them.

Rehash of dozens of other threads "proving" that each poster's favorite color is "better."

Smart posters don't post because they are out riding their bikes, which don't break because they are made of durable materials like Al, steel, CF, and titanium.

My prejudice can beat up your prejudice. My favorite color is faster. When comparing apples and oranges, the guy with a juicer wins.

Even if it a plastic-framed juicer ... it still has steel blades. Now I am Really confused.

My alignment didn't change after every crash. (In fact I did quite well with all the UO-8 crashes (except a broken thumb that got set crooked but works well) until the final frame ending car door. My 2nd shoulder wreck. Now after that and four broken collarbones I an finally symmetrical again with roughly symmetrical mis-matches on both sides and roughly equal shoulder drop and width.

As I write this, I remembered the bike Team Dumpster, the sport 501 tubed Peugeot what was hit by an SUV under the previous owner. Fork trashed, top tube dented and both chainstays set tot the right and about to break off. I CF wrapped the BB and chainstays (old boat building skills) and rode it 8000 miles. That bike is now retired (before a catastrophic failure - had it been CF, it would have asploded from the SUV hit, not dented, bent and cracked).

Ben

Absolute proof that only steel is good, and CF is a terrible material for a bike frame.

That is hilarious. Steel might be real, but CF saved the steel frame. I bet the rider was terrified for each of the 8000 miles he rode on the CF-repaired frame, just knowing it was going to asplode and tear off his dangling modifiers.

And if he had hit the SUV riding a CF bike ... he couldn't have fixed it with steel.

Yup ... and if you had hit the SUV driving a steel SUV .... or if you had hit the SUV driving a high-end CF/Al sports car .... or if you had been driving an M1-A1 Abrams tank ...

I hit an SUV driving an Abrams tank, and the tank wasn't scratched. (How the SUV got into the tank, I can't tell you. ) This proves everything I say about bicycles.

I wrecked a steel car playing Grand Theft Auto ... and my aluminum bike wasn't damaged (it was in the garage, I was in my office.) If I had hit my steel bike with a 20-lb sledge, it wouldn't have scored me points in the video game. This proves CF bikes are lethal and also stupid to buy for people who don't plan to race ... I guess.

You know it's true ... because I saw a review of Grand Theft Auto in the New York Times.

,

I'll respond once more, then I'm out.

1. Obviously this is a discussion forum, and topics are discussed multiple times. My point is that this article, which has already been discussed here multiple times, was never worth discussing seriously in the first place, and still isn't.

2. Questions about quality control, and its importance in the manufacture of carbon frames, are real and are constantly under discussion here and elsewhere. Agreed, but this article contributes nothing of substance to that discussion. The question of diminishing returns is a real one as well, and worth discussion. Again though, this article contributes nothing of substance to that discussion. The fact is that this article's main purpose is to sensationalize; see #3 below.

3. Yes, I have read the article several times; re-read it just now. It produces no -- zero, none -- evidence that modern carbon fibre frames/forks "break regularly" under racing conditions. What it does provide are unsubstantiated assertions that this is the case.

Further, it is quite clear that the intention is to give the impression that these are 'spontaneous asplosions' that cause and/or greatly increase the severity of crashes, rather than frames/forks failing as a result of crashes: " ... the bikes and wheels frequently shatter, often hurling riders to the road and, many fear, increasing the severity of injuries." No evidence whatsoever is produced or referenced for this; rather, what we have are the usual rhetorical ploys -- "everybody knows ..."; "But when they spoke on the condition they not be identified, their stories emerged ... " etc. leading to the assertion that there is an omerta surrounding alleged cf asplosions parallel to the one that surrounded doping.

My conclusion: this is a sensationalist piece of writing and not worth serious discussion. Satire/sarcasm directed at it is a different matter.

I believe that. 13 pounds is no better than 15 pounds if UCI requires you to add 2 pounds of ballast.

Well ... first, that is not diminishing returns .... that is overall weight.

Second, and this is something that also matters a lot imn auto racing ... having a very light frame enables the designer to adjust balance and strength by reinforcing/ballasting at different places. On a bike frame, where to ballast is not so critical (it pretty much goes in, on, or around the BB shell.) With a car, lowering and tailoring the position of the center of gravity is really important to handling. The bike just needs to have enough lead tacked on the make weight.

But for the guy designing the bike frame, he is told, "Here, put this relatively heavy battery somewhere." Having a frame which is two ounces lighter makes it possible to meet the minimum and include the battery.

When everyone goes to disc brakes, there will be more weight added ... so again, the lighter the frame, the better.

But even so, the folks designing the bikes Chris Froome and Peter Sagan ride (I think) are not even that concerned about overall weight, because they know that can build a 680-gram frame or whatever. They are looking at things like aero, directional strength, localized stiffness ... basically building enough rigidity and flexibility into the bike to increase performance through frame engineering ... basically what tube-makers did with double- and triple-butting, hydroforming, and I forget the latest technique, but that stuff.

Diminishing returns would be, the bike frame is lighter but it cost so much to build (or replace when it breaks) that the manufacturers cannot afford to sponsor teams, or if the lighter frames produced no advantage ...

And of course the whole "Lighter Frames" thing is a red herring, because CF isn't just about being light. CF is about having the ability to create almost any shape with any characteristic, so that the bikes can be lighter and stronger and more aero, and stiffer and also more compliant in different places.

Another thing to consider: Racing machinery is built to fail. People designing racing gear couldn't care less about "lifetime warranty." If the vehicle gets the rider/driver to the finish line first, it is a successful design. If it falls apart ten feet past the finish line, who cares?

Racing eats up components. I have heard a lot about how Dura-Ace isn't really worthwhile for a daily rider because it is designed to last for one season of racing and be replaced. Whether or not that is true, or to what extent, is irrelevant; the idea is accurate. Things built for racing are made light versus long-lasting. And things made for racing are made to be and are treated as, expendable. Frames, tires, wheels, other components ... use 'em up, toss 'em.

Have you ever seen how many sets of tires an auto racing team will use in a weekend? The tires are only good for a few hundred miles, and often only really good for a fraction of that. Does this mean rubber tires suck? No, it means tires designed for racing are not built to last.

A CF bike used in racing is designed to be expendable, because the teams expect crashes. They simply don't care. The teams don't have the time or the resources ready to rebuild frames---just grab another one from the van and let's go. So the fact that bikes (of any frame material) get abused and discarded in racing pertains only to racing.

For the kind of casual road-riding that most of us probably do, the rigors of racing are about as important as the performance of racers. Chris Froome is probably faster in his sleep than I am on my best day on a bike. It has Zero bearing on my life, or my ride. He might go through seven bikes in a Grand Tour. Means Zero relative to me.

I want to build a CF bike so I can have an affordable bike which weighs about 15 pounds ... affordable on my budget, of course. I also like building bikes, though I am not very skilled ... another thing Mr. Froome and I don't share (pretty sure he doesn't build his own bikes, eh?) I don't need a bike that light; it certainly won't make me any faster. But I will enjoy owning and riding it (if I build it right) and that is what I plan to do.

Basically, what happens to racers means nothing to me. And frankly, what happens to the bike in a catastrophic wreck means nothing to me too .... because I don't plan to be involved in a catastrophic wreck, and if it happens anyway, I am mostly concerned about my survival, not the bike's. So when I shop for bikes, I only think about My ride ... not some potential wreck, not what some WorldTour racer does, none of that.

When people come here posting "proof" that some frame material is better, it is humorous because apparently those posters cannot see that context determines what is "best" for each rider---there is no absolute, except that the bike must be ridable when in riding trim (i.e. when not wrecked or asploded.)

When they post "proof" that a given frame material is hazardous--like Al, Ti, and CF reputedly are---it is sort of like "proof" that Bigfoot exists. it is great to state an opinion, but having three people echo your opinion equals zero proof.

It is a little annoying and a little amusing when people come here posting, essentially, "Let me think for you because I know better" and then demonstrate an inability to think well. Not that they are stupid, just blinded by their own prejudices on certain matters.

To sum it all up---IF YOU RIDE CF YOU WILL DIE. This seems to be an absolute truth and one upon which we can all agree. Same as if you never ride CF. But then, I might go and live forever and shoot down my own argument.

I responded saying that this is probably true in the very limited circumstance you're talking about, and you replied:

Then why did you bring it up?

Because I was responding to You. it isn't all about me, dude.

Has nobody mentioned CF airplanes yet? Well you can't say that anymore.