There is no reason to buy a carbon bike

[Tommasini53]

Originally Posted by sparky33

click-bait central...and I clicked it. They got me.

Let's have a contest: What will be the best next clickbait headline to appear in Outside?
"Gravel is over, skinny tires are back"
"Jorts"
"5 secrets to becoming a better [fill in blank] cyclist"

And the bi-annual required writing...
"Ride Slower to Get Faster"

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by Mark Davison

And please note that NHAero’s main travel bike has a titanium frame, not CFL. I don’t think this is accidental.

Now that I’ve decided I really like the build I have on my Specialized Diverge (with CFL frame) I’m getting a titanium frame made with the similar geometry and I’ll just move the parts over. Then I can park it at the local cafe without fretting.

That’s it: CFL makes me fret.

I think what you're saying is that if you only have one bike and you like to leave that one bike locked up in public, it's better for that bike to be metal. But that certainly doesn't apply to just about anyone here.

[Mark Davison]

The conversation I had with the Boeing engineers ocurred some years ago when Boeing was taking the CFL wing production in house (attempts to outsource had failed.) The engineers were on a team creating special machines to do the layup for the wings.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by Mark Davison

(attempts to outsource had failed.) .

I'll bet there's a few hundred lucky passengers walking around today who don't know how lucky they are after that one.

[RoosterCogset]

In fairness but perhaps not what the author was talking about, mostly carbon bikes are common because that's what the manufacturers are selling.

For example, what really would be the performance difference between Trek Emonda SLR6, and the same bike if it was available as well built instead on the ALR frameset? Yes, about a 500g difference, but otherwise?

The fact is you can't get an ALR complete bike from Trek with any electronic drivetrain, or CF wheels, or integrated handlebars, etc.. Looking at the MSRP differences, an ALR frameset equivalently equipped would cost about $3k less, but these aren't pricepoints/model tiers that the manufacturers want existing to muddy up their narrative.

[AngryScientist]

We should all recognize the beauty of the internet.

No longer does a one need to have an advanced degree and thousands of hours of work experience.

A simple 20 minute conversation with an OEM engineer at the pub; or even a washed-up satire bicycle journalist can be a composite materials expert. Gatekeeping is dead

[spoonrobot]

I'm surprised at how angry this made people everywhere I've seen it posted. I guess it makes sense given the turnover in online cycling audiences who don't know or care who Eben Weiss is, as well the addiction to outrage we all have now.

The article itself is so mild I'm not quite sure what people are so irritated about, but I read the BSNYC blog feed from time to time and find his writing and sentiment has improved over the years. So probably just a "Men are from Mars..." situation.

[Mr. Pink]

Yeah, tough crowd.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

We should all recognize the beauty of the internet.

No longer does a one need to have an advanced degree and thousands of hours of work experience.

A simple 20 minute conversation with an OEM engineer at the pub; or even a washed-up satire bicycle journalist can be a composite materials expert. Gatekeeping is dead

Don't worry, there's plenty of censors out there trying to fix all that. They know better.

[rothwem]

Originally Posted by prototoast

My personal view, and this applies to every publication from Outside to the New York times, is that no one should be an opinion writer for more than 10 years.* Rather than than increased wisdom with experience, longtime opinion writers tend to have fewer practical insights and tend to dig deeper and deeper into crazytown in order to churn out novel content. That's clearly the case for Bike Snob--he's already exhausted all his novel and interesting (even if controversial) opinions, but can't just walk away.

My other rules for opinion writing is every article should show clear evidence the author has to research something, and that readers should learn something even if they disagree with the thesis. This article fails on both accounts.

Outside is not alone in poor opinion quality, but this article never needed to be published.

*I will make an exception for Dave Barry.

I’m not 100% sure I agree, but I will say that this article makes me sad for Eben Weiss. I remember reading bikesnobnyc back in the days of “laterally stiff and vertically compliant” and I thought he was hilarious. And he’s still a pretty decent writer. The real issue comes down to the fact that as a full time writer, you’ve got to pay the mortgage and these days that means stupid clickbait articles for Outside magazine.

Maybe the real requirement to write opinion columns is that you be independently wealthy so you don’t have to put up with market forces driving you do write stupid things.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

I'm surprised at how angry this made people everywhere I've seen it posted. I guess it makes sense given the turnover in online cycling audiences who don't know or care who Eben Weiss is, as well the addiction to outrage we all have now.

If you think anyone in this thread is "mad" or "outrages" it's just because you are looking for something that isnt there.

This is a bike discussion forum. I think it's fair to recognize and chat about an absolutely worthless article that we all wasted our time skimming through.

What does make me upset is that I used to think Outside mag was a really great publication back in it's glory days, and it's sad to me to see it degenerate into a a click baity rag of worthlessness.

Everything dies baby, that's a fact.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by rothwem

I’m not 100% sure I agree, but I will say that this article makes me sad for Eben Weiss. I remember reading bikesnobnyc back in the days of “laterally stiff and vertically compliant” and I thought he was hilarious. And he’s still a pretty decent writer. The real issue comes down to the fact that as a full time writer, you’ve got to pay the mortgage and these days that means stupid clickbait articles for Outside magazine.

Maybe the real requirement to write opinion columns is that you be independently wealthy so you don’t have to put up with market forces driving you do write stupid things.

Like Thomas Friedman. Phew, that guy. Walking proof you should marry well.

[charliedid]

Anybody read the article in the past week or so that basically said that the UCI should allow designs and tech that only the pro riders have access to NOT the general public. That is it would make for more interesting tech and racing, similar to Formula1 racing?

I can't find it but feel like Snob is riffing off that in a way.

Anybody?

[Mark Davison]

A few remarks on where I am coming from.

I have had two experiences that have shaped my views on the mismatch between what the bike industry sells and what the broader market for recreational sports bikes needs.

One is being an assisant ride leader for the Cascade Training Series—a series of rides to progressively build up the fitness of riders who want to complete Cascade’s annual Seattle To Portland (STP) ride. The ride is in late June, the training series starts in March, when it’s still raining in the Pacific Northwest. Many of the riders are new to sport riding (not racing) and show up with brand new bicycles. This was in the rim brake era of the early 2000s and the bikes were typically Shimano 105 level “road” bikes, which I think translated to “bikes that look like professional road race bikes but are too heavy so no one knows what they are good for”. Mechanically they were fine, and Merckx could have repeated his Tour de France wins on them, but for sport road riding (which is more similar to Audax or randonneuring then road racing) the bikes had several deficiencies: a) no fenders and no provision for fenders, b) skinny tires, c) frequently poor fit. Add-on fenders were tacked on after the first ride—Cascade rides not so politely tell you to ride at the back if you have no fenders and the roads are wet. The skinny tires could not be helped—this was an era when many frames had clearance for 25mm tires at most. But c) was the worst problem, particularly for shorter riders that were just never going to be comfortable on 700C. The introduction of monocoque carbon fiber frames has made the situation worse, because there is no affordable recourse to custom frames. (There are, of course, custom carbon fiber frames, but the ones I know of are quite pricy, and are basically bonded carbon fiber tubes.)

These riders are better served by the few dealers in our area that will a) determine what features they need in a bike for the type of riding they are going to do, b) give them a fitting, so the target dimensions are known and then c) sell them a stock frame customized with choice of saddle, bars and saddle, and/or d) build or have built for them a custom steel frame. In my area of Seattle there are a few shops that do this: R&E does the whole process, making the custom steel frames in house, Montlake Cycles used to work through Waterford, says they will now go through Co-motion, Cascade Bicycle Studio (at the high end) goes through Seven Cycles and Stinner, Davidson will go in house for titanium and out of house for steel. There are probably others, but those are the ones immediately around. At any rate, the resulting bike will not be competitive for road racing, but it will fit the rider and fit their use case. And it won’t be made out of CFL.

So to turn it around: what use cases demand CFL? I would guess serious road racing at the advanced amateur level and above. I don’t know about cross racing—is the weight advantage significant? Possibly tri-athlon participation at a high enough level.

I was teaching a bicycle commuting class once, and a participant who was probably 40 lbs overweight asked me if I thought he could make his commute easier by buying a carbon fiber bike. I told him he should figure out what the change in total weight of him + bike + luggage would be. Say it was 5%. Then, at best, he would save 5% of the time required to go up a long hill. For me in summer fit trim, self + bike + luggage is about 200lbs. So saving 4lbs by going from a steel frame to a light CFL frame would save 2%. It would win a race, but it wouldn’t let me sleep in.

The second experience was teaching home maintenance classes for Cascade. The instructors hated it when a student showed up with any bike that didn’t have a round seat post that could be clamped in the Park repair stands that had been provided for us. (This would usually be a CFL bike with an aero seatpost, sold to some ordinary mortal to ride in a triathlon.) Also we did not have an appropriate set of torque wrenches, nor the confidence that a beginner home mechanic wouldn’t drop a wrench on their nice new CFL frame. I concluded that for riders who want to learn to do their own maintenance CFL frame bikes are not the appropriate introductory bike.

Summary of my position: CFL provides real gains in light weight and ride, but these gains come at a cost in resilience, service life and maintainability. CFL must be treated with care. CFL bikes are probably best reserved for serious racers and dedicated enthusiasts who can deal with the care and maintenance issues. Everyone else would be better served with a metal frame.

Abstract debates about frame materials miss the issues of matching material to use case.

[Matthew]

Ride whatever you want. Problem solved.