MAJOR Price Increases looming for carbon bikes?

[covie]

Calm your bullsh!t-o-meter down - it has to do with comfort regardless of geometry (which plays a massive role, but lets assume you have that to be a non negotiable). There is actual science to it if you are interested, spend a few minutes quietly in the corner with Google before ridiculing, or ask anyone who rides a hardtail carbon frame if you may take it for a spin

 

Now my bull**** o meter hit 12 , its 90% to do with the geomitry/design, 5% using stiffer lighter material, 5% personal taste.

 

I do realize a lot of people spent a fortune on their carbon babies and would never admit that their old alu frames were actually nicer.

[AndreZA]

Without a good geometry it does not matter if a bike is made from unobtanium, it will be k@k. And just like a saddle, it is a personal choice and people should stop buying a name just because.

[MariusL]

Now my bull**** o meter hit 12 , its 90% to do with the geomitry/design, 5% using stiffer lighter material, 5% personal taste.

 

I do realize a lot of people spent a fortune on their carbon babies and would never admit that their old alu frames were actually nicer.

 

I've never ridden a carbon bike, my CAAD9 'Dale (I refused to pay R20k for a carbon frame - which was pretty much entry level, vs R8k for my 'Dale which is argubaly the best alu frame around) comes in under 7kg's with it's race face on... will carbon make me go faster - NOPE! I might get more bonus points when standing in the starting shoot for having bling carbon all over the show, but when the roads tilt heavenwards I have the last laugh... you carbon boytjies with your bling bling, deep pockets and white cyling pant can't climb... ha ha ha ha!!!

[covie]

Marius Carbon on a roadbike is the biggest waste of money their are so many alu bikes that have to have weight added these days to qualify to be legal according to intl standards. The weight advantage of carbon on roadbikes have been pretty much nullified.

 

And until manufactures design carbon frames for strenght rather than lightness on MTB's you wont see an advantage. Carbon has three times the tensile strength of steel, but only if the design caters for it. Which on most bikes it doesnt. So you end up with a very light carbon bike thats not even as stiff as alu, and cracks the frist time you abuse it a little.

 

I will buy a carbon bike when they design it with strength and stiffness in mind. The problem with that is that when they do that the weight comes in exactly the same level as a decent alloy bike. But in that case it will be super stiff with almost no flex.

 

But marketing being marketing carbon bikes get pushed as super lightweight as its primary and then they lie to you telling you how strong and stiff it is, but they fail to inform you that our design forced us to skip on the strength and stiffness part so you can save 100 grams.

[nuge]

And then there's the new "carbon tax" too, now that's gonna screw you...

haha, i take great pride in the fact that my "carbon footprint" is limited to my fork and one stem spacer (and just because the bike shop ran out of alu ones due to my high, but comfortable, stem height!)

[bikemonster]

W.r.t. carbon vs alu and my bullshitometer readings...sorry, this turned into a lengthy post.

 

If you've ridden carbon and alu versions of the same bike, on the same day, over the same terrain, using the same everything and the same tyre pressures and then you tell me that the carbon rides plusher, I might believe you. I'm pretty sceptical that that's what anybody has done.

 

Carbon is not a magical substitute for suspension. Depending on how it's been used, it can absorb road buzz. It got this reputation largely as a result of peoples' experience with it in road bikes. This is not to say that every carbon road bike offers a plush ride, or that every alu bike will rattle your fillings out.

 

My road bike is carbon. And yes, it has a nicer ride than the alu bike it replaced. Of course, the bikes had different saddles, wheels, bars and tyres, so I can not claim on the basis of my experience that carbon makes for a better ride than alu.

 

You can make more difference to the subjective feel of a bike's ride by messing about with tyre pressures than you can by changing fame material. (And bear in mind I am talking about the same frame design in different materials, not carbon bike A and alu bike Y).

 

Borrow somebody's carbon hard tail MTB? Here's another can of worms for you...why would I want to do that when I can ride my own alu full susser?

 

Finally, yes, the received wisdom is that carbon offers a better ride than alu. But the thing with received wisdom (for bikies) is that it is largely coloured by marketing spin and BS that sloppy journalists write in bike mags, and is not backed up by any kind of empirical testing. Received wisdom is usually flat out wrong.

[MeridaV]

W.r.t. carbon vs alu and my bullshitometer readings...sorry, this turned into a lengthy post.

 

If you've ridden carbon and alu versions of the same bike, on the same day, over the same terrain, using the same everything and the same tyre pressures and then you tell me that the carbon rides plusher, I might believe you. I'm pretty sceptical that that's what anybody has done.

 

Carbon is not a magical substitute for suspension. Depending on how it's been used, it can absorb road buzz. It got this reputation largely as a result of peoples' experience with it in road bikes. This is not to say that every carbon road bike offers a plush ride, or that every alu bike will rattle your fillings out.

 

My road bike is carbon. And yes, it has a nicer ride than the alu bike it replaced. Of course, the bikes had different saddles, wheels, bars and tyres, so I can not claim on the basis of my experience that carbon makes for a better ride than alu.

 

You can make more difference to the subjective feel of a bike's ride by messing about with tyre pressures than you can by changing fame material. (And bear in mind I am talking about the same frame design in different materials, not carbon bike A and alu bike Y).

 

Borrow somebody's carbon hard tail MTB? Here's another can of worms for you...why would I want to do that when I can ride my own alu full susser?

 

Finally, yes, the received wisdom is that carbon offers a better ride than alu. But the thing with received wisdom (for bikies) is that it is largely coloured by marketing spin and BS that sloppy journalists write in bike mags, and is not backed up by any kind of empirical testing. Received wisdom is usually flat out wrong.

 

You appear to be missing my point, so let's say that you clearly have objectively come to your current position and I arrived at mine after twenty years of reading subjective jounalists' opinions and not riding mountain bikes... so long, life is too short

 

 

PS It sounds like we'll have an equally divergent view when it comes to suspension

[javadude]

Calm your bullsh!t-o-meter down - it has to do with comfort regardless of geometry (which plays a massive role, but lets assume you have that to be a non negotiable). There is actual science to it if you are interested, spend a few minutes quietly in the corner with Google before ridiculing, or ask anyone who rides a hardtail carbon frame if you may take it for a spin

 

Clearly you need to do more Googling. So are you saying carbon is more "comfortable"? What makes it more comfortable? There are carbon frames that are so stiff you would lose your fillings riding them. In fact, you can make a carbon frame far stiffer than you can make an alu frame stiff for the same given weight.

 

The fact that carbon is the number one frame building material today is only because its the most cost efective way to build light weight bicycles, and thats the only reason.

 

I found this interesting article one day(while "googling") about the perceptions of bicycle quality, and they found that acoustics plays a huge part in the way we perceive a bicycles quality and ride. I would post a link to the article but since you're such an expert googler i'm sure you can find it yourself.

[Dicky DQ]

ja but for the rest of us non googlers please.

[covie]

You appear to be missing my point, so let's say that you clearly have objectively come to your current position and I arrived at mine after twenty years of reading subjective jounalists' opinions and not riding mountain bikes... so long, life is too short

 

 

PS It sounds like we'll have an equally divergent view when it comes to suspension

 

 

Never heard of a subjective journalist in my life before, They are not engineers, nor are they scientists they write what sells. That’s their job.

 

Carbon has never ever, ever been known for a more "comfortable riding style" so stop selling your crap mate we are all stocked up here.

 

Carbon has three qualities over and above Alu and that is strength and rigidity and eight there is no way in hell that any one of those can create a more "comfortable" riding style. In fact Velo is right the rigidity can create a more harsh environment. Your comfort is 100% attributed to your setup and geometry. It has nothing to do with the material the bike is made off. What carbon will give you if correctly designed is a stronger lighter more rigid bike and more direct steering and that is all.

 

On a road bike they dont care about the riding style since you hardly ever do precision maneuvers, they concentrate soley on weight and and being rigid for acceleration.

 

On a MTB it has to do with weight strength and rigidity since all three of those factors do influence a MTB. That being said to much focus are being done on weight part of carbon, rather than it being a rigid, stronger material. Hence you are hearing everyday of another carbon bike cracking up.

[MeridaV]

Never heard of a subjective journalist in my life before, They are not engineers, nor are they scientists they write what sells. That’s their job.

 

Carbon has never ever, ever been known for a more "comfortable riding style" so stop selling your crap mate we are all stocked up here.

 

Carbon has three qualities over and above Alu and that is strength and rigidity and eight there is no way in hell that any one of those can create a more "comfortable" riding style. In fact Velo is right the rigidity can create a more harsh environment. Your comfort is 100% attributed to your setup and geometry. It has nothing to do with the material the bike is made off. What carbon will give you if correctly designed is a stronger lighter more rigid bike and more direct steering and that is all.

 

On a road bike they dont care about the riding style since you hardly ever do precision maneuvers, they concentrate soley on weight and and being rigid for acceleration.

 

On a MTB it has to do with weight strength and rigidity since all three of those factors do influence a MTB. That being said to much focus are being done on weight part of carbon, rather than it being a rigid, stronger material. Hence you are hearing everyday of another carbon bike cracking up.

 

OK "Mate" please spend a second or two and re-read what I wrote. (hint, there was sarcasm involved, so do not take it all literally and google the meaning of "objective" and "subjective" before you shoot you mouth off because it spoils a pleasant argument quite quickly if one realises you are engaging with the village idiot.)

 

On the technical merrits of what you are saying and in defence of the "crap" that I am "selling" - your pseudo science is no better. You are correct that the carbon fibres are ridgid, but the matrix and the "design" of the lay-up results in an anisotropic material that can be more ridgid in one direction and less so in another. I suppose the reason why felt compelled to reply in the first place was that this is all basic second year Strength of Materials stuff and just because one is a natural sceptic does not change the fact that propper composite design can utilise this anisotropy. While I am at it, I think we should also clear something up about geometry....

 

....actually whatever - you'll continue believing what you want - so long dude, hope you have a nice ride

[bikemonster]

Let's all take a deep breath and go back a step. Dummies are being spat because GT1 said "Covie I ride a carbon mountain bike, but not for weight saving, the ride is a lot nicer than aluminium."

 

Covie and I then pointed out that this kind of blanket statement was a massive oversimplification.

 

And nothing that has been put forward since, despite some sarcasm and use of polysyllabic verbiage has offered a coherent contradiction.

 

That is all.

[covie]

Well said BikeMonster. And if he has'nt realized it yet he is alone in his beliefs so who am i to spoil his happy place.

[MeridaV]

Let's all take a deep breath and go back a step. Dummies are being spat because GT1 said "Covie I ride a carbon mountain bike, but not for weight saving, the ride is a lot nicer than aluminium."

 

Covie and I then pointed out that this kind of blanket statement was a massive oversimplification.

 

And nothing that has been put forward since, despite some sarcasm and use of polysyllabic verbiage has offered a coherent contradiction.

 

That is all.

 

Well actually GT1's statement was ridiculed. I thought that I should point out that while, granted there are many examples of carbon being used purely for marketing purposes that does not mean that GT1's statement is bull and I couldn't leave it alone when I read some of the incorrect statements about material properties. The true beauty to me of composites (in general) as an engineering material is that you can use the anisotropic properties to design something that has strenght and stiffness that is dependant on the direction of the load being applied - which is what I thought Covie was ignoring. Yes it does require decent design that utilises the material propperties correctly and no it will not solve a poor geometry, but that is true of all frame materials.

(also think about it - GT1 said "I ride a carbon mountain bike, but not for weight saving, the ride is a lot nicer than aluminium." - he never said all carbon bikes ride nicer than alu bikes.... he just stated his experience which happens to be similar to mine on my hardtail)

[bikemonster]

GT1's statement was ridiculed, and I believe correctly, because he attributed his bike's great ride to the use of carbon, and not to the design. I don't doubt that the bike in question has a great ride, nor that it is made of carbon, but the link between the two is very far from established.

 

When we ride a bike, frame material is just one of the inputs into what we feel. Unless all other variables have been removed, what you are feeling is "the bike", and not the frame material.

[covie]

"the ride is a lot nicer than aluminium" "he never said all carbon bikes ride nicer than alu bikes.... "

 

 

Merida, thats exactly what he said and thats exactly what sparked this debate. And nobody on this forum ever debated the qualities of carbon fiber as a brilliant material. Now we can see for some reason you are realy hyped up about this debate, and i understand you spent a fortune on a carbon frame. Nobody is saying its a bad investment, what we are saying is there are factors you need to consider before buying a carbon frame.

 

We did however debate that most engineers do not make proper use of these materials to creat strong frames and parts. There are millions of articles written by engineers that state they have to sacrifice strenght and rigidty to cater for competative wheight loss factor.

 

There are only two bikes where manufactures said outright they desinged these for strength rather than wheightloss, and thats the GT Fury DH bike and the Yeti, and in both these cases the frame weight is almost exactly the same as their alu counterparts.

 

Which in short the statement made is that carbon bikes are by definition more frail than their alu counterparts due the poor engineering driven by need for lighter rather than better frames.

 

Phone any distrobuter of carbon frames in this country and they will tell you the returns on carbon frames are at least 5-1 vs alu.

 

Search the hub for cracked frames and do a comparison.