Reading back through this string I see that I was offensive in some places. I am not aware of the dates I posted these things because I was in the process of recovering from severe concussion and didn't really have a close control of my temper at the time. But being faced with people that simply don't ride like me saying things like "you can't wear a set of aluminum wheels out in 2,000 miles shows that they probably don't ride that many miles in a year. Around the time of these postings I was riding 8,000 miles a year and 400,000 ft of climbing. If you do a lot of descending you do a lot of heavy braking and that wears out wheels fairly fast. On one of my bikes (a Tommasini Fire with a steel fork) I presently have a set of Campy Shamals of the new type. Even though, at 78, I am now only riding about 4,000 miles a year and 146,000 feet of climbing and that Tommasini is only one of six bikes it is beginning to show wear.
My Cheap Chinese Carbon wheels that look and weigh very suspiciously like Campagnolo Bullets haven't given me one moments worry while the Shamals have - I just hit a large pothole a couple of weeks ago and knocked the front wheel out of alignment and Misaligned the tire on the rim.
I'm sure that you can break a carbon fiber wheel. While trying to get a tubeless tire to jump up on the step to seal I had two of these wheels delaminate from overpressure. If you don't think that ANY carbon wheel will not do the same thing, you don't know how they are manufactured.
After seeing one too many carbon fiber bikes break, I have returned to steel and have never been happier. Yes, most of the old classics are pretty heavy and climb more slowly. So who am I racing? And the Waterford Racing and Tomassini Fire are very close to the weight of a carbon fiber bike. I put a steel fork on my Tommasini Fire and it weighs 17.8 lbs. My 2018 Trek Emonda weighed 17.25 lbs. The sheer increase in comfort of a steel frame more than makes up for the increase in weight.
And I had perhaps six disk brake bikes (most of them were CX bikes). How many people here and elsewhere argued with me that if I went over the bars I didn't know what I was doing? While watching a pro race yesterday I watched a pro go right over the bars. At least when I did it I was descending a 20% grade and pulling over into deep dust so that a group of MTB'er could get by on the hard path. So people that do not ride a great deal, should not complain about my equipment choices. Nor tell me what could wear out in how many miles.
