WTF is a carbon bike?
redddraggon
Posts: 10,862
Personally I've never seen a carbon bike........where do you get them from?
You don't call a Aluminium*, Titanium* or Steel* bike, a "metal" bike, so why call a CFRP bike "carbon". Because it's nout like carbon
(* Even though an Aluminium/Titanium/Steel framed bike, is not simply Aluminium/Titanium/Steel, but specific alloys, I let that slide......)
You don't call a Aluminium*, Titanium* or Steel* bike, a "metal" bike, so why call a CFRP bike "carbon". Because it's nout like carbon
(* Even though an Aluminium/Titanium/Steel framed bike, is not simply Aluminium/Titanium/Steel, but specific alloys, I let that slide......)
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I do have a "carbon" bike - its made completely from diamonds. I'd post a picture but my valet has taken it to the jewellers to have the chain cleaned and the tubs pumped with the breath of unicorns......................'This week I 'ave been mostly been climbing like Basso - Shirley Basso.'0
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God Red is santa not comming to you this year or have you started on the sauce already :shock:0
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Redddragon - you get them from Santa - so you have obviously ben a naughty boy this year. I got one last year and it laughs every time it sees a metal bike (as it overtakes us)
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Isn't it just easier to refer to frames as being carbon, rather than giving them some wanky scientifically correct moniker?0
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would a carbon bike not have carbon wheels, carbon pedals, bars and maybe even a carbon chain? i never seen one of them.
however i have seen a full carbon frame http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/Cycle/7/Look_585_VHM_Optimum_Full_Carbon_Frameset/5360037979/
wiggle say its full carbon and you dont mess with tha wiggle.0 -
CF is a plastic isn't it?0
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Yeah, wiggle da schnitnizzle.rapid_uphill wrote:you dont mess with tha wiggle.
Disclaimer: I have no idea what that means, but I think it's good.0 -
My old Lotus used to have a 'fibre-glass' body.
Technically perhaps it should have been 'glass-fibre' rather than 'fibre-glass', as I understand that 'fibre-glass' is a trademark of DuPont or someone
And perhaps of course both are wrong, as it didn't have a body made solely out of strands of glass.
- but outside of materials-science journals, no-one in their right mind ever refers to it as 'glass-fibre reinforced plastic'0 -
BTW, welcome to the pedants club
(my sigline... ) 0 -
i'll take that as a yes.0
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Mister W wrote:Infamous wrote:CF is a plastic isn't it?
No, carbon fibre is.......... well, carbon. The stuff they make bikes from is a resin that's reinforced with carbon fibre, or in the case of the chainstay on my bike....... kevlar! Bullet proof bikes
"Carbon fibres" are more than just carbon though.......0 -
No one's replied yet , .. so : This is what the 'oracle' Wiki says : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fibre A good read .
To me though my opinion of it is like that of several others on here , it's , effectively , a plastic . A resin reinforced with CF fibres as GFRP is with glass fibres . No , spare me , I don't want to visit 'pedant's corner' quite yet .
Cosmetically , in its unfinished state it has - unusually - a superficial appeal when the cloth weave is displayed within the glassy sheen of the resin . Though I would hope that , amongst some others , Campagnolo puts a stop to its bullshit obsession with making its smaller components of the wretched black resin ( which they appear to disguise with an outer cosmetic layer of the CF cloth to kid us on ) . On my last bike I finished building it with a Chorus gruppo as there were more shiny bits of real metal than the Record . Penalty : a half pound ."Lick My Decals Off, Baby"0 -
redddraggon wrote:Mister W wrote:Infamous wrote:CF is a plastic isn't it?
No, carbon fibre is.......... well, carbon. The stuff they make bikes from is a resin that's reinforced with carbon fibre, or in the case of the chainstay on my bike....... kevlar! Bullet proof bikes
"Carbon fibres" are more than just carbon though.......
At the risk of being labelled a geek (who said "Too late"? )...... carbon fibres are between 92% and 100% pure carbon. The impurities are oxygen molecules. AFAIK the purer the carbon fibre the stronger it is. 0 -
Uh oh - it's a science fight...0
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When saying that a material is plastic, it can mean one of two things: either the material flows when a load is applied, ie behaves in a plastic manner, or it is a man-made polymer (which typically had the first characteristic). Carbon fibre is neither of these, as it doesn't behave plastically under load (except in its woven condition) and it is a natural fibre that has been processed by burning in a low oxygen atmosphere, not a long-chain, man-made, hydro-carbon polymer.
Although there are natural resins, those used as a binder for carbon fibre structures are man-made polymers. These can be considered to be plastic, although they tend to be brittle under load rather than plastic. It is the weave of carbon fibre (and sometimes a proportion of kevlar) that prevents the resin from behaving brittle in the finished product.
Under certain loads, metals can flow and thus can be called plastic.
To summerize:
Carbon fibre is not plastic until it is made so.
What is plastic, isn't.
What is metal is plastic.
I hope that clears things up. :twisted:To err is human, but to make a real balls up takes a super computer.0
