puddin' legs

...and it won't last forever unless you take care of it. Did you read a word of what was mentioned about carbon and temperature? One more time, if planes (lot's of carbon fiber these days) don't melt in Vegas, bikes aren't likely to either.

garysol1 

You need to ride carbon before you so quickly poop on it. I have ridden Steel, Alum and Carbon and I prefer the carbon. I prefer the quickness feeling that only a very stiff frame can give but I am not willing to give up ride quality to get it. Carbon gives me that best of both worlds.....I have my cake and eat it too....Is my Carbon frame as sexy as that DeRosa?...nope... but I prefer the ride and thats what is most important to me.

ViperZ

I beg to differ... As much as I love classic Italian steel, I think your R2.5 is every bit as sexy as the DeRosa... The Derosa is a Classic like an old Alfa Romeo, where as the Cevelo is new tech like a Enzo Ferrari

Given the choice of those 2, the R2.5 would be my choice... Now it would be a bit harder choice for me if it were a Colnago Master Pui or a Cinelli Super Corsa just because for me those represent something I have always wanted, Still the Cervelo R2.5 is just as sexy to me.






Love that carbon weave






It looks pretty sexy to me raced by Ivan and Tyler

CPcyclist

As my Air Force father use to say"Liers can figure and figures can lie." He had stories working on the supply side for the presidential plane. When people fly on the plane souvenirs would be taken. If the inventory of forks were off by one, you took another to the band saw cut it and threw out two broken forks , isn't math wonderful.

Warblade

SincityCycler, I have one question for you. Are you a top-end/professional cyclist? I'm going to guess no, but correct me if I am wrong. If you are somewhere around the average cyclist, maybe 75th percentile or so then you're are not going to break a carbon frame, unless you crash. But you can still break a steel frame by crashing. And you will probably like the ride better too. Try one out at you local bike shop.

nova

Mmmm lugs

I love old frames with all the fancy die cut lug cut outs.

As for carbon i dont think you have to worry about a 110 day harming the bike hell even 120 140 wont touch it. Remember you can powder coat carbon parts (with low temp powders 180 to 200 degs f)
Theres no place on earth that will hit high enough temps to harm the stuff. The probe that reently went in to jupiter used carbon fiber heat sheilds as have some of the usas older space craft. The stuff takes alot of heat. What it cant take is wildly swinging tempretures.

Carbon fiber it self can be heated till it glows and remain unharmed. The resins used as i said preiously are cured by heat not by chemical reaction.

Even 2 part chem reaction epoxies can take huge tempretures upwards of 250 f. If i recall correctly typical resins in carbon fiber frames and parts can take temps up to the 250 deg f range. Now you live in a desert invironment so you will have the hot col cycle conditions that could damage it. As i said it will only shave a few years off the frames life. Baring a hard crash or plain stupidity on your part you will have your kids riding that bike 20 years from now.
Not implying your stupid by any means but you get what i mean. That comment could be applied to me or any one on these forums.

Now if your not confortable with carbon frames then by all means dont get one stick with steel or aluminum.
I know from experiance a good steel frame is hard to beat ride wise. Hell i own a nishki a concord and a ralieh. All with nice steel lucgged frames. Also have a cannondale t400 from 87 that is aluminum of corse and my one brother has a 70 to 75 le tour.

If you want to knowwhow well they last best bet find people near you who own them and see how they have held up.
Now id not own a carbon frame with aluminum lugs there. It wouldnt take long for hot cold cycles to screw the frame up bad.
Expansion and contraction at the lugs is what would screw up such frames.

wagathon

[QUOTE=Sincitycycler]100-110 degrees summertime ! That's what I was afraid of spending $2000-4000 on something that won't last a lifetime. I'll stick with steel. DeRosa Neo Primato next year....hmmm...lugged frame...aahh...

Nice bike. One "negative" for steel is that it can rust. All of my steel-framed bikes were a little wippy. That's is not necessarily a negative--just a characteristic--but CF seems to provide greater stiffness and still provides a comfortable ride.

The only concern I would have about "plastic" is if it required a metal understructure for strenth. Bonding to metal is too tricky a science for me to rely on. But, CF bike frames are metal-free. I also would stay away from CF if I thought it would be subjected to a lot of abuse, e.g., it wouldn't be my choice if I was running a bicycle rental business.

CF bikes sure paint-up nice. I wouldn't buy a bike just because it had a killer paint job but the paint on my "853" steel Lemond was like lipstick by comparison; as careful as I was I still could not avoid the occasional spec of white undercoat that showed from the slightest knick and scrape on the red, white and blue Y2K paint job.

bbattle

Sincity, why do you care? Are you getting tired of the Sarthe and Jonesing for a Madone to go with that full Disco kit we all know you have hanging in the closet.

531Aussie

if you're interested, there's some more recent results here, but they don't show the failures

https://www.efbe.de/efbealt/erenn.htm

slvoid

Most of the failure that occurs is in the construction, not the material.
You have to remember that a bike isn't a solid component, very few bike frames are completely homogenous. It's a mixture of parts joined together and it's where they are joined that parts fail. A bad weld, bad lug, bad laminate, etc, will ruin your day. A chunk of that material tested in a fatigue tester will show you where the theoretical failure is but says nothing about how it will fail realistically.
Two same exact frames can be orders of magnitude off in fatigue cycles if they're from 2 different batches.
Numbers from the material won't say much about how the frame as a whole will handle. That's like trying to determine how reliable a car is by the material that the crank shaft is made of; you really can't.

DannoXYZ 

In my experience, wheels fail about 10-15x more often than than frames...I've toasted quite a few wheels .... .. and handlebars... and stems... and forks... even snapped a seatpost once... crank... pedals... Snapped 1 steel frame, 3 alloy frames... my only carbon frame is 14 years old and has outlasted all the other ones...

As slvoid said, construction methods and production tolerances plays a big role, perhaps even larger than materials selection. There's some interesting research in the CF arena. The Trek OCLV may be close to the forefront with as much structural fibre for the weight as possible, but the next level is 3D weaving rather than lay-up of 2D flat layers. You would litterally weave a 3D object in one piece from continuous strands of CF such that there's no joints with overlapping layers, all the tubing would flow into each other with continuous fibres.

pigmode

My sense is that carbon will be more susceptible to failure due to QC issues, and to the minor kind of dings that could lead to stress risers and eventual failure. It would not be my choice for a one-bike owner. That said, there's a better than even chance that my next bike will be carbon.

froze

Carbon fiber is way stronger then steel. So I'll take a steel sword and you take a Carbon fiber sword that weighs the same because someone noted that a one pound carbon rod was stronger the a one pound steel rod thus I want you to have a more fairer advantage then I; and I'll dull the edge of the steel sword since it could be argued that the steel sword can carry a sharper edge, to match the edge of the carbon sword; and then we'll have a sword fight and lets see who wins.

And by the way, you can rig charts up to say anything you want so don't believe charts. Aluminum framed bikes are not the strongest material, in fact they are the weakest of ALL the materials used to construct bikes. Here is a commentary on that: https://www.anvilbikes.com/story.php?news_ID=9&catID=3

Frame material has also fostered endless debate, and efforts were made to supplant steel frames with aluminum, titanium, and carbon fiber. But, steel bikes are everywhere, and bikes made of other materials have mostly disappeared. This was not hard to predict, as the performance advantages of the other materials were slight, and those bikes were more expensive to build. Only the Cannondale aluminum bikes seem to have won general acceptance. A common frame myth is that a high-quality steel frame will be worn out in a year or two of heavy riding, becoming very soft and flexible. Actually, a properly made, good quality chrome-moly frame will never wear out, although it may rust or suffer other damage that can cause it to fail.

Then read this from bike guru Jobst Brandt: https://yarchive.net/bike/composite_frames.html
and: https://yarchive.net/bike/carbon_forks.html
Then: https://www.rivendellbicycles.com/htm...eopinions.html
Also: https://www.rivendellbicycles.com/htm...materials.html
And: https://www.rivendellbicycles.com/html/101_lugs.html

And then one needs to wonder why there are no carbon fiber touring frames...hmmm.

Richard Cranium

Much of the "working strength" of a material is a result of it's application. There's little chance of a valid comparison.

slide

Good GRIEF! I read this entire thread and was about to reply when I read Richard's comment which IS my reply.

I'll only add that carbon fiber isn't made equally. My buddy works in aerospace where he has access to real carbon. If you made a bicycle out of this stuff, it'd cost into seven figures.

I'm also one of those guys who can't understand why anybody would want to lug around lugs on their bikes now that we have the tech to make non lugged frames. I guess these guys are the ones responsible for the 'new' fender look on some modern cars / trucks. Seems silly to me.

slowswede

There is absolutely no question about witch sword would break first though.. And what a coincidence, the links refered to are from producers of luged, steel frames..

Retro Grouch 

If durability over 10+ years is your primary criteria, I'd pick the steel frame.

We've had a lot of history with steel bike frames so you can be pretty well assured that a steel bike frame, with average care, will still be going strong in 10 years.

Carbon fiber, on the other hand, not only has less of a track record, but the fabrication methods are a moving target so the carbon fiber frames of 10 years ago were generally constructed differently than the ones that you're likely to be considering today. I also suspect that carbon fiber frame designers are likely to try to maximize the weight advantage of using that material and are consequently likely to push the design envelope a bit.

The bottom line is that I can't say for certain that a modern carbon fiber bicycle frame will or won't still be hanging on in 10 years but I'm all-but-certain that a steel frame will.

ViperZ

My Carbon frame is 16 years old and still going strong


The Sword analogy is flawed for that is not the intended aplication of the frame material, to be wielded as a weapon, repeatedly smashed against something. Thats like saying steel makes a better bike tire because it wears longer than rubber.

wagathon

Swords? Ok, how about a bow and arrow contest? How about a pole vaulting contest? How about the TDF? How many carbon forks broke down in the last 7 TDFs? How about . . . etc.?

JuanIsTheMan

Don't trust carbon fiber? You must be like John Madden and don't fly. Do you know what the carbon fiber content of a modern jet airliner is?

Enthalpic

All hail the inanimate carbon rod! Do'h

Sincitycycler

How would you know which company makes the best carbon frame? Trek totally rips apart other comapanies' technique in manufacturing on their info video.

Let me ask this: Is there a bike brand that's notorious more making crappy carbon frames?

pigmode

Look, Time, and Colnago are among the 4 frames under consideration for a spring, late winter build.

slide

Why not have the bike built by someone in the business who you trust. They're the experts and that way you won't have that after the sale doubt.

I tried an older carbon bike. It felt to me as if it were made of soggy newspapers. I bought Al and am very happy (carbon fork, bar and seatpost for that good ride). I would guess modern carbon bikes are as nice riding as my Al one or the steel one I borrowed before I got my own, but why get yourself in a lather since you can still buy great frames of Ti, Al or steel.

RockyMtnMerlin

Well at first I thought this was a joke. But the thread is so long (with additional input from Sincitycycler) that it must not be. The discussion of which frame material is better appears frequenlty on nearly every bicycle forum, ruminated about on many manufatuurer's websites and is also covered in many good repair manuals. The stuff linked to the Rivendell site was most interesting. I have not seen any other major builders' site quite that "colorful" when talking about frames made from material that they don't offer. Especially amusing was the "analysis" of CF. But back to the question from Sincity. If you are interested in seeing what a CF bike can really be, go ride one at your LBS. If you like the feel (and remember not all CF frames feel the same), then if they offer a great warranty, what could you possibly be worried about? I ride a high quality titanium frame and I love it (I have also owned high quality {Basso & Cannondale} steel and aluminum frames). I personally like the titanium one better, and it has a life time warranty. Finally, I agree with that other very important point made, you are riding a bike not just a frame.