Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
I have really wondered why some people want to tour on carbon frames. But, some people do. Here is another example of what can go wrong if you are not careful with a carbon frame.
It is just another material with lots of great properties. It can make a great frame that is plenty durable. No one makes one that is specifically designed for heavy touring, but that has more to due with whether it would sell than whether it could be durable enough. It just happens that the frames on road bikes are probably designed to be light, stiff, and durable in approximately that order.
People probably tour on CF road frames because they are touring light and a light frame suits their setup and is tough enough. Some may do it because it is the bike they have. Some may just be misguided.
There are CF frames that are designed to take more abuse. Carbon fiber MTB frames are made to take a beating. Gravel bikes should be as well if they are actually designed to stand up to real gravel riding or maybe even gravel racing. I know that I wouldn't hesitate to ride a carbon fiber gravel bike on tour particularly if packing either light or ultralight. If I were ready to spring for a new bike to tour on and price wasn't holding me back, a CF gravel bike might well be my first choice.
I can see your point though in that for heavy touring there wouldn't be a lot of point in going to a CF frame and mounting 4 panniers ahd 40-60# of gear on it. The thing is though, a wonderful heavy touring frame could be built out of CF that would be bullet proof and quite up to the task. It might not be super light though as we usually expect from CF. If built to the same weight as a steel frame it could be quite a bit tougher.
Another thing with composite materialis that a framecan be designed to be stiff in the places the desigher wants it to be and flex ithe the ones he doesn't. All that can be dialed in and fine tuned in a way that would be difficult to do with other materials. That may be an argument for or against using a road frame for touring depending on how far outside the design parameters you go when you load it. I'd say it would be against,loading one with 4 heavy panniers, but carrying 20# or lessof gear is probably just fine. In between is probably a judgement call. Trailers are another issue and I am not so sure about them. I know the guy I rode with on the ST seemed to have a lot of mechanical issues the manufacturer of his CF bike blamed on the trailer. I don't know what all he had done, but he got stopped waiting for warranty support a few times. I think he got a new rear wheel (or two?), a couple derailleur hangers, and I don't know what else. I suspected the one wheeled trailer was flexing the rear triangle. I was surprised they covered it under warranty given the load in the trailer causing the issue on an endurance road bike.
Some of this is a little moot since I doubt there are many people going heavy touring on CF road frames other than with trailers.
Oh, and just an anecdotal point. The frames or forks I have managed to break, bend, or crack bad enough to ruin were all either steel or aluminum, mostly steel. The only broken aluminum was a broken fork killed in a fairly high speed crash into a car. I got an abulance ride with that one and the bike got a ride in the cop car after I refused to go in the ambulance unless the cop promised to take my bike to the station and hold it. The rest of the frame survived and I still ride it today. It even did the ST from San Diego to Pensacola with a cheap replacement CF fork.