Carbon Mountain Bikes

[Peter10]

Have a look at this video of a guy doing stunts on a carbon fibre road bike. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=5z1fSpZNXhU

I love that video saw it a while back, very cleaver I think also.

I have had a look at a few bikes, still unsure of what I want though. I had great fun today at night cycling through a trail on a borrowed Specialised hard tail bike (not sure of the model). Starting to make really go and buy one now.

 

[Cubist]

no surprise to see them top of your list Cubist ...I have to say, they are very pretty bikes and weren't a manufacturer that I had heard of until recently.

Nor me until I went into the LBS to buy half a dozen Meridas for work, saw the Cubes and they sold themselves. Then young Cubester saw the attention and fell in love with it, and of course I had to get a Ltd for XC riding. Can't fault them, and they are incredible value for money now, with 2011 bikes getting better spec components pound for pound than a lot of the competition. They don't seem to cater for hardcore trail riding yet, but I would recommend them any day for trekking and XC/racing stuff.

By they way OP, I think for racing and XC stuff, even some moderate trail riding, carbon will be plenty strong enough.

Just to throw a bit of extra thinking at you, have you thought about Titanium? If you are into XC or trail and can afford to be thinking about carbon bikes, then Ragley, On-One and various others do some very good Ti frames, which I would choose over carbon. I saw a Ti frame for £700 in a mag the other day, which is extraordinarily cheap. Budget another 1200 for components and you can build your own!

 

[KEEF]

Some people have an inate distrust of carbon fibre.

They believe that one night they will come home and find that the carbon fibre has turned to cheese and their bike has melted.


Just been down to my garage and found a block of cheddar where my bike was any one got any pickle

 

[Tynan]

that driver cell example is nonsense, if you're happy to discard your carbon frame after a knock then great, you're not going to drive the car agai after having to call upon the carbon fibre crash cell are you

that vid is very impressive but the frame doesn't take an impact does it, that rider is very smooth, no-one is disputing that carbon fibre frames are strong

 

[DrSquirrel]

Is that why they use it for the safety cell in racing cars and boats? Do the drivers walk out unscathed because the resin that holds the weave has broken away? What a load of cobblers!

If they have a crash, do they use it again?

CF once cracked - in short - can't be repaired (in long, maybe).

 

[jethro10]

Is that why they use it for the safety cell in racing cars and boats? Do the drivers walk out unscathed because the resin that holds the weave has broken away? What a load of cobblers!

In racing cars they are designed to be thrown away after a big accident as they can afford new ones. Folk don't want to do that with a bike
Your not comparing apples with apples here I'm afraid.
Yes carbon fibre is very strong but it does have poor impact performance.
Oh, and by the way, it's usually Kevlar fibre in racing car stress points and cells nowerdays, or at least has quantities of kevlar in there.

Jef

 

[Tim Bennet.]

No the carbon safety cells are NOT designed to break. Nor do they.

All the other components of the car are designed to be ripped of to both absorb the crash energy and reduce the total mass involved in the final impact. But the safety cell remains intact.

No amount of fairy stories and half understood science is going to change the fact that carbon fibre is weight for weight far stronger than any other bike material.

CF once cracked - in short - can't be repaired

Of course it can. It's skilled work but not not hard.

 

[Howard]

I was under the impression that the problem with carbon bicycle components is a troubling combination of a catastrophic failure mode combined with an ability to disguise structural damage that would be immediately obvious if the component was made of metal.

So just like Alu, then, except that the wallop the bike received last time you where downhilling may - or may not - result in the untimely collapse of your seat tube, and nobody short of round trip back the manufacturer will be able to tell for sure, and even then I've heard they'll struggle.

That's not to say I wouldn't buy one - I'd just think very hard about it.

 

[DrSquirrel]

Of course it can. It's skilled work but not not hard.

Skilled work? but not hard?

I did put "in short" for a reason.

 

[fido]

I've had a number of CF MTBs over the years and thought they were also great (the reason I've had a number is because the bloody things keep getting pinched).

The only failure I ever had was on a secondhand giant CFM frame I bought but even that went for 5 years for the original owner and a further 5 for me. I then had a proper ding with a car that kind of put a splintered hole in a chainstay (it was actually still useable with no discernable increased flex) so It was hardly down to any inherent weakness of the material.

In order to get the frame in the bin I had to cut in in half so I thought it would be fun to achieve this by throwing a concrete block at it - which I had to do again and again and again....etc. before in finally broke in any catastrophic sense.

 

[BigmechUK]

CF bikes really are solid and light weight. worth the money totally! i have had 3 cf bikes over the years and they are solid