PeteHski

Okay, so who exactly is saying that you are ill-equipped if you don’t have the latest tech?

I have loads of consumer electronics that are 5+ years old and still functioning perfectly well. Digital cameras for example. I can’t say I care about using a 20 year old derailleur. I’m more worried about my own functionality in that time scale. Life is too short to worry about the life of consumables. They appear to last long enough from what I’ve seen.

RH Clark

That's good to hear. Maybe I will be convinced by the time I am too old to use one.

3alarmer

...everyone feels self conscious about something. It's part of the human condition, if you're not a complete *******. On my part, the bicycles I ride don't make it onto the list.

3alarmer

...thanks for the chuckle PeteHski . Good way to start the day.

You should go back and read that article again. It's clearly stated that a certain demographic probably can take full advantage of the new, miracle, space age technology that is present in todays CFRP frames. It's simply not a majority demographic, and there are trade offs with every choice you make in life, including this one. The arguments in support are, at least, reasonable.

This is known in the vernacular as a straw man argument. People use the device frequently in these discussions, and this one is no exception.

Eben Weiss is not "some guy". He has had a following for many years as Bike Snob NYC, originally a blog that was quite popular with the younger demographic of cyclists, pointing out some of the current trends in cycling strangeness. He got that Outside gig because of this popularity. I read him for years, on topics like "Fixies" and "Strange and elaborate cockpit configurations". You share at least one thing, in that both of you have made me laugh, over the years.

He always used to get some blowback, because he often questions the current bicycle fashion paradigm. But it was never as intense, nor as vicious, as that that has arisen in questioning the current carbon fiber/disc brake manufacturing and marketing model as inappropriate for the majority of the schmucks buying bicycles. You would know this, I guess, were you not so entrenched in that small demographic doling out the abuse.

Someone posted earlier that 2023 was a disappointing year for bike sales. No one knows why, exactly. But it's possible that continuing to make bicycles that fit the needs of a small minority of users contributes to a decline in sales. Thus it becomes, after a disastrous period of losing money, sort of a self limiting problem. I have no idea how it will turn out. I lack your finely honed predictive skills for the future.

3alarmer

...yet you will not make that effort. Because you have that dogmatic belief in your own view and opinions. You're a treasure, Pete. Facts are what you state them to be, and you look out upon a world where the Retrogrouches are coming for your bike technology. If that's not a classic "angry old man" reaction, I've never seen one.

Meanwhile, some of us still exist who think that the current marketing and manufacturing paradigm for bicycles might have skewed pretty far off into the stratosphere. I am one, and I present facts in support of my opinions, ffor the most part. I do make an exception for the current crop of relentless "new is what you need" trolls in here. Arguing facts with trolls only lasts for a few posts, before you just give up and go along for the ride.

If you want people to address you with more respect for your opinions (and that is what they are), you're gonna need to adopt a different standard. "You are just making this stuff up to support your silly rant," doesn't cut it.

3alarmer

...once the evidence is presented (as direct quotes), you will then proceed to discount it as "cherry picking". Sophistry has no limit, and that's not going to change. You have already proven this with me, in another thread. It's a tired old trolling technique, as are most of yours lately in these threads. Disguising it as rational argument does not change the nature of it. Let's just focus on your signature line...that's the money shot.

seypat

Back in the office. Did anyone dig up that thread? Looks like some people reread it. Let me find it.

squirtdad

I have never stated it is solely a carbon fiber problem, but the fact remains that it is a larger concern with carbon bikes due to multiple factors including how carbon composites can be built strong and light by putting material at major stress point and not much material at other point and due to the failure mode of carbon once the integrity of the composite is compromised. (I will get crap for this but: a good if not exactly equal example is of a barely ripe banana, which is pretty hard to pull open to skin from the stem, but is you break the integrity of the skin with a little nick of a knife it opens a lot easier)

I don't hate carbon, I looked into a bunch for carbon before I decided to go custom for a variety of reasons.

If you ride to the max hard and fast and take advantage of it super, but know that you have to take a bit more care is say you ride and errand with kids and have to lock up it up with other bikes and more clueless people (opp sorry I leaned my 80 pound e bike and it fell on your bike)

so no need to be defensive about carbon

and bottom line there is a solution we should all be able to agree on N+1

and for the fun because there are not enough pics of bikes in general in the forum, here is my steel bike that I would never clamp.

genejockey 

Counterpoint:

squirtdad

What I don't get is why people want to compare plane wings and fuselages with bike frames.

The materials and build process are are not identical, and the structures, forces, designs, and function are not at all similar

what should be also be noted is that there are lots of different building methods using carbon composites in order to max out material strengths. Pre Preg, heat bonding and curing, resin and vacuum bag, positive form, negative form etc

base2 

Because the requirements are broadly the same: An appropriate amount of strength in the appropriate direction at the minimum possible weight with an appropriate safety margin. This requires the engineer to fully understand the requirements, the material attributes and design accordingly. The only difference is scale and form factor of the craft type.

The idea is to dispute the material limitations and argue for engineering and design execution.

terrymorse 

I can't speak for others, but I mentioned that the airline industry chooses carbon fiber where it makes sense, mainly for its superior fatigue resistance over aluminum alloy. Fatigue resistance of carbon composites was the subject at hand.

squirtdad

base2 Completely agree on the appropriate strength, direction, but the form factor between a large flat surface like a wing is completely different than that if a bike frame that it feels like comparison is difficult

terrymorse Point taken, and of course recent issues with doors and such, airplanes are get a lot a lot of inspections and takeoff and landing cycles (pressurization) are recorded

Koyote

Defending carbon fiber is not the same as being defensive about it. I’ve got no reason to be defensive about it – only one of my five bikes is carbon fiber, and it’s the one I ride the least often. But that’s got nothing to do with the frame material.

Caebon fiber gets a bad rap from a few people around here, and I think you were verging on that territory. The problems you claimed for it are problems for all frame materials – that was my point, and it seems we are largely in agreement. Though we may disagree on the extent to which cf requires any special treatment. And I certainly do agree about “horses for courses“ – – no, I would never ride a carbon fiber bike as a commuter. But again, that has a little to do with the material itself… Rather, I just wouldn’t want to spend that kind of money on a bike that’s going to get knocked around a lot. My commuter is a $500 single speed with an aluminum frame, which has been upgraded selectively.

smd4

Is caebon fiber as boing as it seems?

Maelochs

Some folks need to learn to be honest.

The fact is, CF is a known material---despite the fact that new developments happen all the time---and people have been using it for many decades. Engineers know how to design CF components that work. We all know this and see it proved all around as we have seen for decades.

People who (for whatever reason) bear prejudice against CF are self-deluding. it is just a material which can be used successfully in numerous applications as can many other materials. many of these materials are used to build bike frames---CF, hardwood, bamboo, aluminum, steel .... and in every case it is the design, construction, and engineering which determines whether the part works---Not the material.

A badly designed part will fail no matter what it is made of .... that is what makes it "badly designed." A badly constructed part will fail no matter what is made from---which is why we call it "badly constructed." Bad design and bad construction have nothing to do with the parts or the materials.

We all know this but still spend dozens of pages pretending the Earth is flat, the Sun is cold, the Moon landing were faked, and birds aren't real.

After decades of CF bikes .... what kind of self-delusion is needed to pretend to oneself that CF is not a tested and proved materiel for bicycles? And what kind of further delusion is needed to come to a forum where people have been watching others ride, or riding CF bikes themselves, for decades, and to tell those people that nothing they have experienced in their lives actually happened, because this guy on the internet said so?

I hope all this is meant as comedy.

3alarmer

Atlas Shrugged

The best you guys can do is mock a typo?

smd4

I’ve been getting it all day. Try to keep up.

When your pals do it it’s ok, though.

3alarmer

....yes it was. I can attest to the veracity of that. The word for word verbiage I posted from Wikipedia was simply meant to point out that your statement, which started out as:

Then gradually morphed into:

Which to me, seems a strange way to react to something that simply points out that a fatigue failure mode that is complicated to calculate and predict, is not the same as no fatigue life.

Now, we have arrived at the usual point, to which Maelochs takes every freaking disagreement:

It's comedy all right. Don Rickles and insult comedy is a recognized genre. But it stopped being funny before CFRP bike frames became dependable in racing.

Here's an example of me, arguing in the same manner:

You really need to decide if you want your old man rants to fit the model of any kind of rational exchange in this forum, man. If you had written this in my direction, it would already be reported as personal insult.

3alarmer

...be here all week. Remember to tip your waiter.

3alarmer

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...planes and bicycle material have been associated since the Wright brothers. Reynolds lightweight steel tubing was used in airplanes before it got picked up by the bicycle industry. The early Teledyne Titan came about as a result of a excess (bargain priced) supply of titanium from a downturn in the aerospace industry. None of that is new or news.

What seems to me to be new, is the zealotry applied toward redefining the community of users as needing race level technology "to fully enjoy the sport". I've not seen that before. I think it was invented, but I'm not sure who invented it, or where. It's a lot like arguing you need to buy a faster sewing machine. "Big Bicycle", you have a lot to answer for.

Atlas Shrugged

I actually owned a Titan, which I bought in 1975 after a successful summer working on a fish boat. You have absolutely no clue how and why Teledyne got into the bicycle business. Do you make this crap up or just repeat old wives tales you overheard in some distant past.

“The manufacturer was a southern California based aerospace firm named "Teledyne'. Teledyne was based in Gardena, CA, where they specialized in working with exotic metals like titanium which required special processes to fabricate frames. It is a little known rumor that the bike division was formed as a way of obtaining titanium during the cold war years of the early 1970s. Russia is where all the titanium was at and they were not about to send military grade titanium to the USA for them to make weapons with, but bicycles was another story. The US got the titanium and the bicycle part of the company promptly died but managed to win several races. Multiple national cycling champion Ron Skarin won a Red Zinger stage and the Tour of Sommerville twice on a Teledyne Titan and Pete Penseyers won the Race Across America (RAAM) on one. The history of the Teledyne would not be complete without mentioning Barry Harvey (a British cycling champion, who emigrated to Canada), who was the first to introduce his titanium frame technology to the cycling community at the US Grand Prix in 1972. Soon after this he worked out a deal with a California aerospace company to go into the bike frame manufacturing business. The Teledyne Titans were actually made from commercially pure titanium which is not as strong as the current 3/2.5 (aluminum/vanadium) alloy blend. The commercially pure metal was easier to work with than the harder alloys. In 1975, Teledyne was producing frames for the North Hollywood Wheelman team. “

ScottCommutes

I totally agree with your premise, but digital cameras are one consumer electronic where newer is significantly better. My Canon SLR was high-end 15 or 20 years ago, but it straight up can't do what even modern consumer cameras can do - particularly in the areas of dynamic range and signal/noise ratio. For non-photographers, that means that my camera can't capture details in black and white at the same time (like at a wedding) or take quality pictures in low light conditions.

3alarmer

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...what exactly do you disagree with, in my post that talks about the close historical association between bicycle makers and flight innovation ? I guess I'm unclear, other than "3alarmer wrote it, so I need to post something that makes him look bad". Teledyne was a huge conglomeration of companies in the early 70's, and in an endless cycle of expanding acquisitions. See Wiki for the concise history.
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Do I know why they decided to make bicycle frames ? I wasn't there, and I can't ask anyone. Both of us are in the same position on that.

But I do know that there was a considerable drop in the SoCal Aerospace industry after the boom years of the Apollo Program, which ended in 1972. It really didn't recover much until the '80's. So there was plenty of machining and manufacturing capacity, that could work with titanium, sitting around looking for alternate product contracts. I did make the assumption that they also had material stockpiles, which were suddenly not going into aerospace production.

I guess I could be wrong on that assumption. But you've certainly not demonstrated that with your quick Google search, nor with your wall hanger Titan. I knew one guy here who bought one...it was an overall poor performer for him. So much for "design and engineering producing a superior bike frame in any material". IIRC, many of them broke. See Whatever happened to the Teledyne Titan?

You need to get another hobby, because stalking me here isn't working out very well for you. I'm gonna do you a favor now, and put you on ignore. It's a time suck responding to every insane charge you level, and I'm almost a week into recovery from that surgery, so I can spend the time more productively walking and getting back into exercise. Good luck making new friends with your pointless rants and screeds...I'm sure someone will be sympathetic. It's a family forum after all.