Carbon frames break more often. Really?

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Comments

  • Iamnot Wiggins
    Iamnot Wiggins Posts: 685
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    Dippydog2 wrote:
    The thing these days is that with our consumer legislation you don't have to really worry about manufacturers. Your recourse is to the retailer. That's why I buy from big companies in England.
    .
    That helps and is certainly enough if you own n + 1 bikes. If you don't and maybe only own a race bike for sundays and a heavy commuter with mudguards and a rack, you might end up missing your summer riding completely because you have to wait 3 months to get a replacement frame. It does happen, it's not even unfrequent. I for one was due to wait months to get a replacement (indeed cracked carbon) fork for my everyday steel bike and ended up buying one instead to avoid being off the bike for months and having to commute by train. Moral is I am 150 quid off pocket, so my warranty is just as good as toilet paper for what I am concerned.

    No it isn't - just because you're impatient doesn't mean your warranty is rubbish. Out of interest, did you see the issue through to completion or just write it off on account of the timescale involved? Regrettably, these things are rarely sorted out quickly.
  • Bar Shaker
    Bar Shaker Posts: 2,313
    It's not about the weight as it is now easy to make a bike sub UCI weight, it is about where you make the frame strong. The structure around the drivetrain (bottom bracket and stays) on a modern carbon bike is magnitudes stiffer than welded tubes. From an engineering point of view, it lets you make critical structural region in shapes that you just could not consider from tubes.

    If you had the same rider delivering power through an FEA designed carbon frame he would be more efficient in delivering his power. Fact.

    This is why 100% of the grand tours are ridden on carbon. Oh, and anyone who says that they are carbon due to marketing should consider that carbon bikes make up a tiny fraction of the total bikes sold by all of the big manufacturers. If one of them thought they could win a tour on Aluminium, they would give it a go.
    Boardman Elite SLR 9.2S
    Boardman FS Pro
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,317
    Iamnot Wiggins wrote:
    No it isn't - just because you're impatient doesn't mean your warranty is rubbish. Out of interest, did you see the issue through to completion or just write it off on account of the timescale involved? Regrettably, these things are rarely sorted out quickly.

    Sometimes I wonder if you read the post... I said "for what I am concerned the warranty is as good as toilet paper" which means exactly what it says.
    No, the issue is not over... they've offered 100 pounds worth of cycling stuff as a pay off, as they claim that's the value of the fork (which is bollox I know)... I have accepted but obviously what I want is not in stock, so I have got a fistful of flies for the time being.
    I suppose I could have gone down harder and get 150 quid in cash, which is what I spent for a replacement, but the moral is that I needed a fork and had to buy one... I didn't need a voucher, gaffer tape, drill bits, jelly babies or new shifters, just a bloody fork and Madison, the biggest distributor of cycling gear in the UK didn't have one in stock or on order or anywhere to be seen at any time in the foreseeable future... so there's the depth of your warranty...
    left the forum March 2023
  • Iamnot Wiggins
    Iamnot Wiggins Posts: 685
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    Iamnot Wiggins wrote:
    No it isn't - just because you're impatient doesn't mean your warranty is rubbish. Out of interest, did you see the issue through to completion or just write it off on account of the timescale involved? Regrettably, these things are rarely sorted out quickly.

    Sometimes I wonder if you read the post... I said "for what I am concerned the warranty is as good as toilet paper" which means exactly what it says.
    No, the issue is not over... they've offered 100 pounds worth of cycling stuff as a pay off, as they claim that's the value of the fork (which is bollox I know)... I have accepted but obviously what I want is not in stock, so I have got a fistful of flies for the time being.
    I suppose I could have gone down harder and get 150 quid in cash, which is what I spent for a replacement, but the moral is that I needed a fork and had to buy one... I didn't need a voucher, gaffer tape, drill bits, jelly babies or new shifters, just a bloody fork and Madison, the biggest distributor of cycling gear in the UK didn't have one in stock or on order or anywhere to be seen at any time in the foreseeable future... so there's the depth of your warranty...

    Perhaps read your post back, Paolo. You give off the impression that you couldn't be arsed to wait so spent money on a replacement which equates to the warranty being awful.

    I can sympathise with your predicament however as I was in a similar situation with a frame manufacturer who didn't have any frames in my size until they physically made them which equated to a wait of a month or so between frame cracking & warranty replacement being issued. They gave me a load of free clothing which I sold as none of it fitted!
  • buzzwold
    buzzwold Posts: 197
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    I don't think crashes in the peloton are relevant, TBH... for what we know they might not even ride the same frame that you and I can buy in the shop.
    I think if one wants to criticise the latest crop of carbon frames, then he should use numbers... talking to people in the trade it seems the number of warranty claims for crack and defect related issues is up, but there are no figures and you can't expect manufacturers to wave these kind of figures... nor the distributors and not even the retailers... so it's all speculation unfortunately


    Hear, hear. Absolutely no quantitative evidence provided to support a definitive view on way of t'other. So if someone can come up with some numbers - insurance industry for instance, then we can form a sensible view.
    Someone's just passed me again
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,317
    Iamnot Wiggins wrote:

    Perhaps read your post back, Paolo. You give off the impression that you couldn't be arsed to wait so spent money on a replacement which equates to the warranty being awful.


    It's not true! I don't give any impression, I made it very clear that I need the bike and cannot do without it for months waiting for a warranty claim, it's not a matter of not being arsed. I need the bike. The alternative is a commute that takes nearly two hours each way!

    Besides, Madison never once mentioned that it was a matter of time... they said they didn't have one, end of the story and offered some form of compensation in the form of a barter "you give me broken fork, I give you new tyres and bits"

    Hence my conclusion... I will get new tyres and I will even use them, but I needed forks
    left the forum March 2023

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