Carbon Carbon and ... more Carbon

[itsacarr]

With all this talk of carbon lately im compelled to ask for a few opinions. I myself am a lover of carbon, always have been and until further notice always will be. More than a few parts on my bike or any bike I have had for racing have generally had a fair amount of it on them.

Now I was wondering how comfortable do people with experience with carbon feel with it? IE ... I have recently met some people who absolutely distaste it for things such as handle bars and stems and posts for cotastrophe reasons. When it goes, it goes badly. Anyone ever had any experience?

Personally I went through nearly 2 complete sets of spinergy rev-x carbon bladed rims on my mountain bike so I do know that when it goes it shatters.

Thoughts anyone?

**I would have deleted this post realizing someone had basically posted the same thing already... but I can't lol so I apologize for the redundancy

[JohnO]

I've owned two carbon framed bikes. One (Trek Y22) was an average performer with some pedal bob, but relatively cheap on the used market. The other (Trek YFoil) has been absolutely superb, a prime example of how good a carbon frameset can be when traditional design is put aside.

No problems with breakage on either frame. My Foil has a Campy carbon seatpost and rear der. - no problem there. Zipp wheels, hideously expensive that they can be, hold up well. So do Campy and FSA cranksets. IMHO, carbon, when well designed, is an excellent material.

OTOH, bad carbon designs will break apart. Early carbon frames, especially lugged/tube frames, would delaminate. The Spinergy wheels were notorious for disintegrating - there is an entire website devoted to documenting failures on Spinergy wheels. However, modern all carbon wheels from other makers have not had this problem. In the TDF time trials this year, just about every rider had a carbon disc wheel on the back. None broke. And the winning team had carbon framed bikes.

[itsacarr]

Are you the one with the Gold YFoil? I much appreciate the reply :) I would also appreciate a picture of your bike lol. I was thinking about buying a set of 404's (speaking of zipp) but I can't afford a race day only set of rims ... only a race day tt front. So I am buying the ksyrium ssc's going up from my syrium elites. Yeah I cried the first time I shattered a rev-x. The next few times I just got horribly upset, grant it they were a sponsor at the time but still. Good things did come however. A nice round carbon circle on my wall ... several carbon book marks, more than a few base guitar pics .. and other than that, randomly chunked out pieces. Creativity with rigid carbon is harder than you think ;)

[chuy]

JohnO: Do you have the address of that website?

[JohnO]

The Spinergy breakage site is:

http://home.interlynx.net/~pjdu/

It's a little alarmist - the guy running it has an axe to grind - but there are some interesting facts.

I wish I could afford Zipp wheels, too. Too much money right now, I've yet to see a used set worth having go for less than $700.

I'm also looking at Ksyriums - the Rolf wheels on my Foil are very quick, but kinda harsh riding.