Life of carbon frames

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AUbicycles
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby AUbicycles » Thu Feb 08, 2018 6:16 pm

UV is just one aspect and I not that made that it keeps me up at night :)

My message is fairly basic, a lot of ground has been made in carbon fiber bike manufacture in the last 20 years so a carbon fiber bike you buy today will be better value and and likely have superior engineering and production compared to a mass produced bike of the past.

For riders, you get a lot of bang for your buck in the $1.000 - 2.500 price rage for carbon fiber bikes.
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Kronos » Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:12 am

A lot of ground has been made, some of it is fairly inconsequential to be honest. It's nice to keep saying you must keep upgrading your carbon bikes as they become "more aero" or whatever... We're in the same process of thinking that led to "speed holes" on steel bikes otherwise known as drillium during the 1970s and 1980s.

A lot of it does not matter to figure a point, I'm running a 10 speed Ultegra groupset on my aluminum bike from 2007 at the moment, it has 99% of the gearing options available that most pro riders would use. You can still by Ultegra 6700 parts off the shelf if you really want them. My aluminum bike weighs 8.5-9kg, I can ride it today exactly the same as I would ride an entry to mid level 8.5-9kg carbon bike. A lighter bike will not make the average person faster and won't matter a thing until you are riding as an A grade rider, or are on a Continental European team http://www.velonews.com/2014/08/news/bi ... kes_339880

Really... A lot of people enjoy pissing thousands of dollars into the wind for a bike that wont actually make them significantly faster in any sense. Meanwhile they don't factor in the amount of time they're spending training to make themselves faster either. It's an ego thing I guess... But most people are getting ripped off buying shiny new bikes. There is no such thing as a fast bike, or a slow bike, the laws of gravity keep your bike held in one place until you start turning the cranks over. Some people out there will be more proficient at doing that then others.

We live in a world where time is money, but people want to incessantly upgrade their bikes. Your time is worth more than that. I realised this fact and now I buy cool old bikes that everyone else thinks are arse. It's not my point to tell you not to buy carbon bikes but when you see people spend 10s of thousands of dollars on more expensive carbon bikes and parts it really makes you think. My currently newest bike was a $2000 bike 10 years ago I bought it for $300 10 years later. It's like taking your hard earned money and setting it on fire.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby AUbicycles » Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:37 pm

Why buy a $40K car when an $18K car has 90% of the more expensive one and serves exactly the same primary function?

Even your Ultegra 6700 (which I still ride as well) benefitted from trickle-down from Dura Ace and took over all of the good attributes and left out a lot of things that gave marginal returns. But why Ultgra when you can go 105 or lower for less?

It is the nature of the market to push consumers to buy new gear and in my view, being a critical or thoughtful consumer is the solution.

Although a sports bikes (e.g. road, MTB) is presented with the retail value typically tied to the apparent performance, for the individual who saves up and rewards themself with a nice bike or gear, their return on value is often not a practical performance advantage - rather it is an emotional return. They may be motivated to ride more so get joy and health benefits.

Returning to the thread - the market it producing carbon fiber bikes and wants riders to buy more frequently. I feel that active sports riders are encouraged to upgrade every few years but when the gear is running well - it is not necessary to upgrade that frequently.
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Kronos » Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:53 pm

My point is the same as yours. Buy a carbon bike if you really want one (it's not my money). But when you have a bike that runs well and ticks all the boxes maybe you should actually stop to consider whether you need a bike now, or in 10 years time. That is of course unless you need that sort of equipment, but by then you may be sponsored either locally, nationally or internationally by a company to ride said bike if you're good enough to make use of that new carbon bike.

Even if you're not that good you might end up like my brother as a knowledgeable bike mechanic and B grade racer, for one of the larger distributors in Australia and get to ride that bike for free as a perk of your job.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Comedian » Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:17 pm

Kronos wrote:My point is the same as yours. Buy a carbon bike if you really want one (it's not my money). But when you have a bike that runs well and ticks all the boxes maybe you should actually stop to consider whether you need a bike now, or in 10 years time. That is of course unless you need that sort of equipment, but by then you may be sponsored either locally, nationally or internationally by a company to ride said bike if you're good enough to make use of that new carbon bike.

Even if you're not that good you might end up like my brother as a knowledgeable bike mechanic and B grade racer, for one of the larger distributors in Australia and get to ride that bike for free as a perk of your job.
In the latest cycling tips podcast they made an interesting observation. Despite the fact that they all made a living by testing carbon fibre bikes, the entire editorial staff rode titanium bikes as their personal bikes. Personally I understand where they are coming from :mrgreen:

I exclusively ride titanium bikes because they ride well, and are light and tough. As far as I can tell, they are as fast or faster than any carbon bike I've owned. I like nice things and carbon bikes fragility would upset me. Sooner or later something would happen. Each of my ti bikes have lived through events that would have damaged carbon bikes.

Early on when I was speaking to people with ti bikes.. one guy said "titanium bikes aren't for you if you like buying a new bike every two years". Last time I spoke with him he'd shouted his bike a new groupset at 80k and it was still going strong. If you buy a ti bike, in most cases you'll literally have it forever.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby P!N20 » Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:47 pm

Comedian wrote:If you buy a ti bike, in most cases you'll literally have it forever.
Will it fit in your coffin?

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby baabaa » Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:02 pm

If so guessing that ti coffins will be the next big thing.

But yes I have three steel frame in true temper OX platinum and as it works for me, wont sell them. I also don't try that hard to break them 'cause they they just dont make them anymore.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby P!N20 » Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:22 pm

baabaa wrote:If so guessing that ti coffins will be the next big thing.
Takes a fair bit to get the suckers to melt, too.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Kronos » Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:51 pm

It's always he case of N+1. I've had carbon, steel, and aluminum, I haven't tried titanium yet but its definitely on my list of things to try.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby outnabike » Tue Feb 13, 2018 12:33 pm

I do so like the honesty of these posts.
What put me off carbon was that when buying my bike, a lot of recalls were to do with fork problems, and chains lacerating the chain stays.
I considered the points on speed and how much faster an old fella would be with saddle bags full of veggies etc. Mud guards and racing frames don't go together that well either.
So here I am back on a steel frame similar to what I had as a boy..... Ahh, but now I reminisce :)
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby armishch » Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm

Simmo wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:55 pm
My high end carbon road bike has now done 25,000 kms in the 5 years I've owned it. What sort of life should I expect from it before (a) having it checked over by a carbon specialist (x-rayed?) and (b) replacing the bike altogether.

Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely. Most manufacturers still recommend that you replace the frame after 6-7 years, however, carbon frames are so strong that they often outlast their riders.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Comedian » Fri Jul 08, 2022 1:27 pm

armishch wrote:
Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm
Simmo wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:55 pm
My high end carbon road bike has now done 25,000 kms in the 5 years I've owned it. What sort of life should I expect from it before (a) having it checked over by a carbon specialist (x-rayed?) and (b) replacing the bike altogether.

Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely. Most manufacturers still recommend that you replace the frame after 6-7 years, however, carbon frames are so strong that they often outlast their riders.
CF really is a wonder material. In aircraft they use it well and peoples lives depend on it.

Unfortunately when they build bikes with it the same standards are not sought or attained. Whether you get a good one or a less good one it literally just a known unknown.

EDIT: Some of that could probably be resolved if we knew who made our bikes - but that's not the modern bike industry. We know the brand applied, but which factory made it is almost always a complete unknown. Few brands actually own their own production facilities.

https://cyclingtips.com/2022/06/nerd-al ... dnt-break/

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Fri Jul 08, 2022 8:16 pm

I would be disappointed of any bike that you could trust for only 25,000kms. Hell, if that's an expected life time then we should all go back to shopping at K-Mart. Those clunky cheap frames would easily exceed that, even if the gear on them doesn't.

When I had a short stint of hang gliding it was stressed that we NEVER use ally alloy for the all critical carabiner that connected the pilot to the glider, it was ALWAYS rolled steel. Cast ally can have cracks and you would not know it until you x-rayed it or it broke, whereas steel, if it looks good it WILL be good.

That is the beauty of old school frames of rolled steep piping (mangalloy, CroMo, etc) and ally, generally if you can''t see a weakness then there probably isn';t one. I'm not sure the same applies to CF.

While I suspect that CF frames can last for decades and decades, the problem will always be that if the frame experiences forces or conditions outside it's narrow design parameters then there may be some cracks that will remain unseen until failure.
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby warthog1 » Fri Jul 08, 2022 8:52 pm

They are light and strong.
Can be laid up to ride relatively smoothly but still be laterally stiff.
I like the lack of weight but strength they have.
No other mass produced material is able to do it better imo.

Have done thousands of ks on carbon.
They don't need to be expensive either.
Currently have 25k km on an ebay Giant tcr frame I bought for $450-
It has a couple of marks and nicks on it but nothing major.
No tube deformation or stars in the paint.
I am unconcerned about it spontaneously exploding.


I've had more trouble with steel and aluminium tbh.
2 steel and 2 aluminium dead due to cracking.
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Thoglette » Fri Jul 08, 2022 9:45 pm

armishch wrote:
Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm
Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely.
This is missing the point. The carbon may last “indefinitely” but the epoxy holding it all together definitely won’t. How long it lasts depends on a huge range of factors, just like fibreglass before it.
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby warthog1 » Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:07 pm

Thoglette wrote:
Fri Jul 08, 2022 9:45 pm
armishch wrote:
Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm
Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely.
This is missing the point. The carbon may last “indefinitely” but the epoxy holding it all together definitely won’t. How long it lasts depends on a huge range of factors, just like fibreglass before it.
Meh.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/late ... ife-277989


https://cyclingtips.com/2015/08/what-is ... bon-frame/

Epoxy is apparently susceptible to damage from uv light.

Heat also despite it being cured at 100c according to one of those links.
Keep it painted and below 100c and you should be right.

More likely you'll simply want another bike than it is likely to chit itself imo.
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby g-boaf » Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:14 am

armishch wrote:
Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm
Simmo wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:55 pm
My high end carbon road bike has now done 25,000 kms in the 5 years I've owned it. What sort of life should I expect from it before (a) having it checked over by a carbon specialist (x-rayed?) and (b) replacing the bike altogether.

Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely. Most manufacturers still recommend that you replace the frame after 6-7 years, however, carbon frames are so strong that they often outlast their riders.
Is that your blog that you've linked?

My carbon bikes are all still in operation with high kilometres. My high kilometres tend to be in shorter amount of time than most people normally do. Even the lightest one has given no troubles over 28,000km.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Thoglette » Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:33 am

warthog1 wrote:
Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:07 pm
Meh.
BSNYC currently has a very early Kestrel on loan, in perfect nick. Which he’s rather enjoying
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby foo on patrol » Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:29 pm

I'm still riding and training on a 2009 Wheeler Route 61 and have no intentions of turfing it. :roll:

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby warthog1 » Sat Jul 09, 2022 1:34 pm

foo on patrol wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:29 pm
I'm still riding and training on a 2009 Wheeler Route 61 and have no intentions of turfing it. :roll:

Foo
Ditto.
My 2012 S5 has 10s of thousands of ks on it.
I just don't ride it as I have gone tubeless and the tyres won't fit in the frame.
2013 ebay TCR fits em though :mrgreen:
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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby elantra » Sat Jul 09, 2022 8:47 pm

Thoglette wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:33 am
BSNYC currently has a very early Kestrel on loan, in perfect nick. Which he’s rather enjoying
Fascinating article, thanks for linking.

Our opinions do merely reflect our experiences and what we have seen on social media, which is never an exhaustive review of the “literature” :lol:

I think that CF is a very valid material for bicycle frame manufacture - as long as weight reduction targets for marketing purposes is not pursued to a dangerous extent.
Which is much the same concern with any frame material.
I recall riders gasping with concern years ago about steel frames with only 0.6mm thickness frame tubing (in places)

I have had steel bikes, aluminium bikes and have (one) CF frame bike, which is 15 yrs old.

Only bike frame that ever failed me was ages ago, an entry-level lugged steel Peugeot bike which was less than 10 years old at the time.
Much more recently I have stopped riding a lugged steel (Reynolds 531) bike after 30 yrs of use, due to appearance a crack in the downtube. But this crack located where the frame tube was replaced after bike crashed into the back of a car decades earlier…

But I am wary of fillet-brazed steel frames !
My “suspicion” is that unless fillet brazing is done with the utmost technical exactitude, it is a bit sus. So I like my steel frames with good lugs !

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby Duck! » Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:42 pm

Thoglette wrote:
Fri Jul 08, 2022 9:45 pm
armishch wrote:
Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm
Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely.
This is missing the point. The carbon may last “indefinitely” but the epoxy holding it all together definitely won’t. How long it lasts depends on a huge range of factors, just like fibreglass before it.
Yes epoxy degrades from UV exposure. That is why carbon frames & components have a UV-resistant coating, usually polyurethane, to protect the laminate structure.

Carbon is also a very repairable material. A minor ding does not render the frame or part dead. Some years ago I crashed my carbon MTB, which resulted in a shifter impact putting a crack in the top tube. I rode it like that, unpatched, for nearly two years until another crash put a matching crack on the other side of the tube. Then I figured patching it might be a good idea, so did that and kept riding it. That was five years ago, and it hasn't shown any sign of weakening.
I had a thought, but it got run over as it crossed my mind.

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby MichaelB » Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:49 pm

elantra wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 8:47 pm

But I am wary of fillet-brazed steel frames !
My “suspicion” is that unless fillet brazing is done with the utmost technical exactitude, it is a bit sus. So I like my steel frames with good lugs !
I KNOW mine is done perfectly, so I’m good for life

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby foo on patrol » Sun Jul 10, 2022 6:47 am

MichaelB wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:49 pm
elantra wrote:
Sat Jul 09, 2022 8:47 pm

But I am wary of fillet-brazed steel frames !
My “suspicion” is that unless fillet brazing is done with the utmost technical exactitude, it is a bit sus. So I like my steel frames with good lugs !
I KNOW mine is done perfectly, so I’m good for life

:lol: but you were nearly an old man with the wait period. :lol: :lol:

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Re: Life of carbon frames

Postby baabaa » Sun Jul 10, 2022 8:14 am

armishch wrote:
Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:29 pm
Simmo wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:55 pm
My high end carbon road bike has now done 25,000 kms in the 5 years I've owned it. What sort of life should I expect from it before (a) having it checked over by a carbon specialist (x-rayed?) and (b) replacing the bike altogether.
Unless they are damaged or poorly built, carbon bike frames can last indefinitely. Most manufacturers still recommend that you replace the frame after 6-7 years, however, carbon frames are so strong that they often outlast their riders.
Note the very sly link !!

Yup and until they address the sustainability of the production and repair of carbon fibre (and not spelt as fiber in Aust!!) composites and the recycling or even new types of biodegradable carbon fibre bonding and manufacturing it will remain a big nope for me - BUT... I do have one bit of cf cycling bit a Columbus Minimal fork which I trust they, Columbus will take back and do something with other than land filling once it reaches the end of it life cycle (dreaming).

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