Machoman121

Rear dropout gouged. LBS said there's no damage to the integrity of the dropout. I tore the derailleur off in a silly crash.

Dan333SP

I guess I'd trust them on that, as I don't see how there's any structural load on that particular piece of the frame. Still, bummer.

redlude97

I assume they pulled the hanger to inspect and replace? Looks like the replaceable hanger did it's job. The chip could be cosmetic, I certainly have lots of random paint chips all over my carbon bikes that I've been riding for thousands of miles with.

exime

I smashed a bit of paint off my fork exposing the carbon in a non-riding accident and replaced it with a warranty discount. Still have the carbon fork to use for spare. I guess I'm OCD.

kbarch

Frames are in fine shape, but I have two huge chips in a white carbon saddle - first from a crash, second, next to it, from when the bike just fell over in a photoshoot.

f4rrest

My carbon shoes are in pretty bad shape.

Bob Ross

Not that banged up!

After a dozen years my carbon bike has a lot of tiny paint chips (mostly on the underside of the downtube and a few on the seatstays) but nothing that looks remotely like it went deeper than the clearcoat.

Greatestalltime

timtak

I hit my carbon bike on the roof light of a garage. It had a crack in the down tube. I rode it for about 5 years then it started to creak. I thought that the creak was the crack and swapped the frame, but in retrospect it was probably the wheel dropouts or the bb both of which can lead to creak if not properly tightened - or any other play in the drivetrain. So my carbon bike was fine with a visible 3 cm crack. It seems to me that carbon being a matrix is a bit like bamboo or any other material with fibres in it. While the plastic may crack the fibres rarely break. And even if they do, generally there will be other fibres to hold the load.

My guess is that carbon frames are stronger than we think.

1500SLR

On a carbon bike, everything is structural. This is the case on any bike really... but on a carbon bike I would be especially cautious if any of the layers of carbon are exposed as this is what gives carbon fibre its strength.

Machoman121

This was my thrid year of owning the bike and the first big 'accident' i've had with it. My take from this is carbon bikes are really susceptible to damage - while they ride fantastic they are sure not very robust. An aluminium dropout (aluminium bike) would have shrug that damage off - it surely wouldn't have tore a hole like that.

1500SLR

I keep trying to tell people, but I keep getting met by lol emoji's by people who are more interested in drinking from the carbon koolaid bottle. A dent is far less problematic in a metal bike than a chip in a carbon fibre bike. Every single significant accident that causes damage to a carbon bike is structural despite what anyone says. It's not if it will fail, its when it does fail.

gettingold

Looks like a good excuse for a new bike!

Kimmo

Pff, this is nothing.

It totally depends on two things, almost regardless of the material.

1 - where is the damage?

2 - how much spare material is there?

This damage is in a spot you could just chamfer off without really affecting anything. It hasn't caused any delamination, by the look of it. Stick a bit of nail polish on it.

I scored a Tarmac for nothing because it had a tiny bit of impact damage above the FD hanger, a crack about half an inch long. Rode the bike for thousands of ks, no problem. Totally fine. It's a 1.2kg frame, which for carbon is beefy as hell.

LAJ

I went down in a crit, and I had to pull my cf bike from the barricades. The seat stay was gouged pretty badly, yet I was able to repair it. Had it been aluminum or steel, I think it would have been thrown away.

gettingold

They are probably not headed toward catastrophic failure, LOL.

BillyD

That's nice, but that doesn't speak for every carbon bike with similar damage, or even every Tarmac.

With damaged carbon, you play at your own risk.

mbw

I'm honestly curious about every day damage, paint chips, etc that people get on frames. But this thread just went to the usual arguments of carbon vs metals. By the same people who constantly try and justify what they use. ... boring.

LAJ

True, but you know none of my bikes are wall queens. They get ridden and raced hard, and my DIY carbon repair has lasted two seasons, with no end in sight. Catastrophic failure is the last thing I would ever want, and I monitor my repair quite often, for no particular reason, other than I know it's there.

LAJ

Paint chips and stuff are no different than a steel or aluminum bike. They get a dab of clear or color paint, and I go about my business.

mbw

Right, but where do you tend to get chips? what protection have people tried using? What types of events have caused damage that wasn't expected? What bone head accidents have you had where you put a scratch in something?

My point is just that... It's possible to have interesting conversation about this stuff without just arguing about things.

noodle soup

this is true, but based on the photo, and my experience working with a CF framebuilder, and repairing damaged CF frames, this looks like superficial damage. The shop that assessed the damage in person, said that it’s not a problem, and I see nothing that makes me believe otherwise.

motosonic

My bikes are generally ok. There are a few chips and dings here and there from normal use, and the Wilier has a decent chunk of paint missing on big Wilier logo, but otherwise they're fine. I've been lucky I guess, *knock on wood*, but I was pooped on by a bird once, lol.

LAJ

It's a bike, and it's treated as such. I get chips, drop a chain here and there, and have a chain stay protector on my cf bike, like my other bikes.

Kimmo

Since carbon isn't quite as hard as ally or steel, it might be that paint is less likely to chip off it.

Carbon needs protection from UV, so apparently it's important to touch up any paint chips. I've even heard it can absorb water, which would be bad, but I'm a little dubious about that. A lot of the more recent resins will have some degree of UV protection built in, but who knows if your frame has any...

Obviously, don't go without a chainstay protector, and those bits of stainless you see stuck on behind the chainrings are kind of a good idea... Although I'd like to see something there that doesn't allow the chain in there in the first place. Damage from a dropped chain getting caught up in there is the most common damage I've seen on my bike stand for sure. And those dinky bits of stainless are better than nothing, but not a complete solution.