Hincapie's steerer tube at Roubaix was aluminium. So I guess aluminium explodes as well. Somebody, please, think of the children!

Since when does carbon fiber + epoxy = plastic?

My thoughts as well - when carbon fibre fails, it fails catastrophically, not gradually. Remember George Hincapie's steerer tube at Paris Roubaix? The other thing with CF is that if the fibre is too stiff, it will crack and shatter.

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/243228/

Santa Cruz testing the failure points of their carbon and aluminum frames. Carbon wins every time. Fast forward to 5:15 to see the final test where they take turns slamming the frame against a concrete pillar trying to break it, without success.

spoiler alert: no explosions...

I got to the part where he says "The bikes, they completely explode" and I couldn't read any more.

She didn't raise me that way. I got that way dealing with people. :p And, I did not decry you as uneducated, rather I stated that before applying the term idiot to others, you should understand the word in question. I only implied that you were ignorant of all the various definitions of the word.



I'll grant you that. It was a bad reference to AaronT, I neglected to add that quote and attribute.



Unprovoked? Very few, and none in this years TdF. I think that part was a bad inference, meaning that in an accident, the carbon bike fails causing further spill/damage where a metal frame wouldn't do that. IIRC, Contador's bike pretty much disintegrated, and one other that I saw. There may have been a couple others. The only unprovoked ones I've seen were an odd one here and there in some of the world time trial starts, and they are putting some decent stress on the frame for that.

John

You have to keep in mind that your experience is statistically anecdotal. Carbon fiber, for all of its greatness, is not perfect. There is a failure rate associated with CF frames and owing to the rigid and monocoque manufacturing process a flaw that would cause a failure will make that failure completely catastrophic. It doesn't mean that I will go back to metal frames, it just means that we should not shove our hands in the sand about CF.