Originally Posted by
1-track-mind
Ha. I say if you really want to kill touring bikes, then continue to make carbon frames and forks with rack mounts as if they could really handle the weight. Is it planned obsolescence or just stupidity ?
This moment in the development of bicycles is just that, one point in time. Take this moment out of the stream of history and you can make all kinds of comments that seem, in that moment, to make sense. But take that moment as just one step along the path and those comments loose in the test of time. As example is AL. We consider AL to be quite a suitable frame material for any use, touring included. Just witness all the positive comments posted here about Cannondales. Yet if 1-track-mind had his way we could only look at AL frames through the eyes of a 1978 rider who had, at that time, only experienced Alans and Vitus. (While these bikes were considered almost too flexible they didn't keep Sean Kelly down
). So, according to 1-track-mind, all the happened after these early AL frames have no place in the discussion of frame materials at any moment later then 1978. This is the ground that 1-track-mind stands on in his current argument. That any future development of carbon that results in a well designed touring frame, one capable of dealing with the loads and handling needs of a fully loaded rig, that rides well and lasts a long time, that can be repaired by any boat builder or person with passing skills with fiberglass is not ever going to happen and if it does happen it will be the devils work.
1-track-mind makes the choice to only view the world as it exists in the current and past with no vision for the world's future. This is why I referred to his "name" (and note that his name is not likely what his mother calls him) as being so well chosen. If one rereads my posts,
#2 and
#8 , you will see words like "well done" and "designed" and that the current selection of said bikes is lacking but able to be done. That they are not yet out in the market place is due to economic forces (will they sell and in how big numbers) and not material limitations.
Our world is not black or white. We all enjoy the various ways a bike can be ridden in the various areas we can get to. To reduce these choices is to limit human development.
I've long said that one could make a well riding frame from bubble gum. It's just that it would need a lot of it and end up looking unlike what one envisions bikes are suppose to look like. Maybe that's why 1-track-mind is so anti carbon?
As to carbon's current reputation of a lack of durability that is a fairly recent idea. When carbon first came onto the market in significantly large numbers, and across more then a couple niche brands, carbon was thought of as very crash worthy. It's only as the marketplace rewarded the brands that produced the lightest weight carbon frames did the amount of plies, the weight, be reduced till there was just barely enough to do the job with well controlled production methods. As soon as the marketplace rewards the manufactures with buying the tougher and more robust designs this, the fragile rep, will change.
I might not like this drift to carbon touring bikes but I won't deny this choice to those who want that. Andy