New bling seen in town

[_Daemon_]

Honda CR250 is cheaper

[Thug]

 

Honda CR250 is cheaper

 

aah, but nowhere near as bling

 

[NotSoBigBen]

Honda CR250 is cheaper

aah' date=' but nowhere near as bling
[/quote']

 

as even your current XC steed Thug!

[Thug]

BB, that carbon frame is a serious work of Art !!

[bored girl]

My Knysna race was an introduction to a whole lot of people.....the dudes that import commencal (sorry Mich don't remember their names), the guy that owns Whasp and Victor the importer of Ibis and Tomac.

He was on a green one.....and well it might look better in black who knows.... If I had a choice between the 2 I'll probably go for a Tomac (saw one on the spruit the other day.....drool.....)

He was telling a story.....A guy phoned him and asked for a lead time on his size bike in the most popular colour/most popular everything....It would have been something insane apparently as there were 130 or something people on the waiting list for that exact spec......

 

[pastapouch]

nice but I don't like the circled part... don't think it serves any purpose.

[NotSoBigBen]

This is much neater and nicer :-

 

[Mudsimus]

This is much neater and nicer :-

 

 

Indeed...pity about the carbon...

[AndreZA]

This is much neater and nicer :-

 

 

Indeed...pity about the carbon...

 

It's a Merida with Specialized stickers on.

 

 

[Red Zone]

Carbon + MTB =

[MintSauce]

Carbon MTBs....?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tumbleweed]

gotta agree about the carbon issue. had a complete newbie in the shop on saturday. i tried to steer him towards the alu xtcs, but he insisted that he wanted the xtc c0. you're mad, i told him, but he was still prepared to spend the R22000! i've seen what happens to carbon fibre road frames and forks. i dread to think of similar failures on an mtb. anyone know anyone who's broken a carbon giant?

[Mudsimus]

Never saw a broken carbon Giant XTC,but saw plenty other carbon MTB's that failed. I ride the alu XTC and will upgrade it soon with another Alu XTC..

[Tumbleweed]

good to hear muds. really nice bikes. am kinda a giant devotee (although i also currently own a trek, sunn, cannondale and gt as well). but i'd heard good things about the carbon xtc's but i'd never own one.

[k23435]

 

I have been in the queue for Ibis Mojo since March via the French importer.  If you really want one, my advise is to get to the queue soon.

 

Now, how to upgrade the rider to same level?

 

 

[MTB Kid]

Carbon is here to stay!

From the Ibis site: www.ibiscycles.com

 

Carbon Fiber and Durability

Carbon fiber has both phenomenal strength and superior fatigue resistance when compared to other commonly used frame materials. And as it is with other materials, a crash can wreak havoc on your nice carbon frame.

How much do you have to worry about the durability of carbon fiber after a crash? As you might imagine, depends on the crash.

First of all, carbon fiber mountain bikes are not new phenomena. Trek and Giant have had carbon fiber mountain bikes in the field for more than 5 years without a significant history of problems. BCD has been making their bomber downhill carbon frames since 1996.

If you crash any bike hard enough, you?re going to need to repair it or replace it. Before we talk about repairing carbon bikes though, we?ll tell you a little bit about what we do to the frames so that maybe you won?t need to get it repaired. On our bikes, the areas that are most prone to damage are reinforced accordingly. The last couple of layers are engineered to be very resistant to impact. Most of the layup of our carbon frames finds the carbon prepreg in 0?, 22.5? and 45? orientations. The 90? weave you often see as the top layer provides the best resistance to impact. We also add a layer of e glass in impact prone areas that need additional toughness.

In all but the most heinous of hucks, it's the resin matrix that fails, not the carbon weave. So the less resin in your layup, the less likely you will see crack propagation. The newer lower resin composites used today are less likely to chip, crack or fail catastrophically. Reduce the resin required to 'wet-out' the matrix and you reduce the risk of failure. See our carbon tech piece for more info.

But let?s say you run out of talent in a big way, and crush some fiber along with your own bones. The good news is carbon can be repaired. You might not believe this, but often it is easier and less expensive to repair than Aluminum, Ti or Steel. An impact that severely dents an aluminum tube might need a tube replaced. Aluminum bikes are heat treated, so in addition removing and replacing the old tube (if it can be removed), you need to also heat treat, realign and repaint or reanodize the frame. None of this is necessary with a carbon frame.

Our friend Craig Calfee offers carbon fiber repair. And probably some other carbon manufacturers do too. Craig is currently working on an article on the repairability of carbon, and is also going to add a non-Calfee repair page to his site. In the mean time, you can go over to his site here: http://www.calfeedesign.com/pages/ship_frame_to_calfee.php