tallbikeman

Trakhak and others have quoted well documented destructive frame testing done in Europe. Beyond the testing reported publicly in the European press I can find no data about frame survival or failure rates over a period of time. As Trakhak stated carbon fiber is by far the best material for maximum repeated frame deflections as were carried out in the European stress tests. Aluminum was second in the destructive testing but quite a ways back from carbon fiber and both were way ahead of titanium and steel. But try to get any kind of information about how all these materials fare in the day to day grind of bicycle usage and you'll find nothing. The pages of this Bike Forum are loaded with broken frame and fork stories for all materials. So statements about durability, suitability, and performance tend to be personal opinions based on some sort of personal experience. Until someone points me in the right direction for real believable data about bicycle frame material long term performance I'm very skeptical of any statements about one material being better than another. Both Trakhak and Bonzo Banana express how I feel about this whole materials situation. The bicycle industry is fashion driven completely. This insures that perfectly usable bicycles are put aside and brand new totally up to date fashion wise bicycles are bought. Do you have disc brakes? 12 speed cassettes? Electronic shifting? High Carbon content? If not you are a fashion moron. That is one of the more potent sales pitches for changing out your perfectly good bicycle you have now. I particularly liked Bonzo Banana's last comments pertaining to this "fashion" subject. I only ride reliable older heavier well engineered steel bicycle frames and forks and have bicycles with 40 years of service with no failure. As mentioned above my weight tests all components on a bicycle and I want no failures due to over stressing a bicycle part meant for a lighter person, and there a myriad of components meant for lighter people. A very fun discussion.