Bought my first carbon bike today..

[NickTB]

At a rather bargain price of £400. It's a B'Twin Mach 720. My question is, as this is my first carbon bike is there anything I need to look out for? It was serviced last Wednesday by Evans, I've checked the frame for damage (There's none) and checked the seat post isn't stuck (It's not) Anything else I need to be aware of? Next up will be a new rear tyre as the front was replaced on Wednesday, pedals and bottle cage.
Thanks,
Nick

 

[steveindenmark]

Just be aware that they dont shrink in the rain and they are just as tough as an alu bike.

Mine is 😁

 

[wafter]

Be very mindful of tightening torques on fixings as it's very easy to over-do it and and knacker something. Buy a half-decent torque wrench and be particularly careful around the stem-to-steerer tube clamp bolts and seatpost clamp.

I've also read that you want to avoid prolongued exposure to heat, point impacts (such as knocking it over onto the edge of a wall) and make sure that if you do damage the paint inspect it as best you can to ensure it's only cosmetic (not easy with composite) and touch it up to prevent moisture ingress

 

[NickTB]

Just be aware that they dont shrink in the rain and they are just as tough as an alu bike.

Mine is 😁 View attachment 526291

Non shrinkage is a good thing!!

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Just be aware that they dont shrink in the rain and they are just as tough as an alu bike.

Just as long as you don't crash or drop a CF frame into contact with a hard solid object, that is.

 

[Cycleops]

Just hope it doesn't develop a squeak in the pressfit bottom bracket

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Just hope it doesn't develop a squeak in the pressfit bottom bracket

Talking of which there's a new Hambini video up on YouTube concerning PF vs threaded BB's. Very informative, although I will still be sticking with threaded cup & cone BB's, even if PF can be made to be technically superior so long as corner-cutting in manufacture doesn't occur....

 

[All uphill]

Nice bike, enjoy it!

 

[Cycleops]

Talking of which there's a new Hambini video up on YouTube concerning PF vs threaded BB's. Very informative, although I will still be sticking with threaded cup & cone BB's, even if PF can be made to be technically superior so long as corner-cutting in manufacture doesn't occur....

Was it Cannondale that started it?
Cheaper and easier to manufacture, best laid plans etc...

 

[rogerzilla]

My carbon bike is the one I ride least. It feels a bit dead. It will go up anything, though, with 39 x 28 gearing. When did we all go soft? A 23T on the back was considered girly in the early 90s, and 13-21 was the standard race bike cassette.

 

[Racing roadkill]

The Mach 720 was a superb ‘faceted’ Carbon framed bike from Decathlon. It was an experiment to test the water, and see if anyone would buy a performance bike, from a supermarket. It was a resounding success, and the Van Rysel bikes are the descendants. It’s a great frame, well ahead of its time, in design, and materials.

 

[ozboz]

Press fit BB’s are seemingly the main complaint from what I can see , I bought a carbon BH , nice bike , right price , after about two months the BB started to creak , it was bloody annoying ! , I took it back and he fixed it , I have no idea what he did , no replacement parts , he just fixed it , and never told me how .It is a BB 30 , it got slated by all I mentioned it to, but that was two years ago , it’s been ok since . If you ever get around to watching the Hambini YouTube vids , he explains a lot about the press fit BB’s .

 

[FrankCrank]

Send it over this way and I'll check for heat resistance. A thorough test takes 2-3 years mind

 

[Globalti]

Press fit BB’s are seemingly the main complaint from what I can see , I bought a carbon BH , nice bike , right price , after about two months the BB started to creak , it was bloody annoying ! , I took it back and he fixed it , I have no idea what he did , no replacement parts , he just fixed it , and never told me how .It is a BB 30 , it got slated by all I mentioned it to, but that was two years ago , it’s been ok since . If you ever get around to watching the Hambini YouTube vids , he explains a lot about the press fit BB’s .

BB30 suffers from creaking when the axle begins to fret inside the bearing inner races. The cure is to pull it apart and apply bearing fit compound to the axle where you can see the early signs of wear and metal erosion. Most people wrongly think the creaking is coming from the bearings moving in their sleeves or even the sleeves moving in the frame and they fiddle about without realising it's a simple fix.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

You shouldn't really have to do all these post-purchase fixes though. If they were properly engineered in the first place, they wouldn't creak. PF is only theoretically superior to threaded, because they can, if precision manufactured, be built to closer tolerances than old-fashioned threaded BB's. However, in practice, because most of the manufacturers get greedy for maximum profit and outsource their manufacturing to the cheapest contractors in the lowest labour cost countries, the products are built out of tolerance and the real-life quality is shite.