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#41 ·
deuxdiesel said:
The game changer in fat bikes will be much lighter tires and rims. With low tire pressure, the ride quality of different frame materials is not nearly as noticeable as on a regular MTB, but the rotating mass is most definitely noticeable. 900 g 4" tires and 500 g 60-70 mm tubeless ready carbon rims will be the game changers. Everything else (drivetrain, brakes, posts, bars...) functions just as it does on a normal MTB. I want this bike only because it's beautiful, not because it will function that much better than my Beargrease.
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You speak the truth !
 
#42 ·
deuxdiesel said:
The game changer in fat bikes will be much lighter tires and rims. With low tire pressure, the ride quality of different frame materials is not nearly as noticeable as on a regular MTB, but the rotating mass is most definitely noticeable. 900 g 4" tires and 500 g 60-70 mm tubeless ready carbon rims will be the game changers. Everything else (drivetrain, brakes, posts, bars...) functions just as it does on a normal MTB. I want this bike only because it's beautiful, not because it will function that much better than my Beargrease.
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+1 - about lighter wheels and tires, but only if they can maintain reasonable durability for trail riding and can be setup tubeless.

I don't want wheels/tires that are light, but I have mediocre confidence in a long way from the trailhead.

I'm probably never going to own a carbon fat bike, but it's cool to see the choices continue to expand....:thumbsup:
 
#43 ·
Pancake Adventure said:
Oh, you again. Yeah. Ok. With that logic, you should probably stay off passenger jets and ****. Cause you know, carbon fiber breaks all the time for no reason and stuff.

*jerkoff smiley goes here*
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I was being serious..my understanding have been carbon can be a great material, as long as there is sufficient maintemance regimen to go with the ownership. If i crash a couple of times, do i have the ability/desire to examine every inch of the bike for structural damage?

Corre t me if im wrong in my assessment.
 
#44 ·
boogman said:
I was being serious..my understanding have been carbon can be a great material, as long as there is sufficient maintemance regimen to go with the ownership. If i crash a couple of times, do i have the ability/desire to examine every inch of the bike for structural damage?

Corre t me if im wrong in my assessment.
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Well built carbon fiber is an amazingly strong material. It beats steel in every way you can imagine, that includes durability.

It's not a bad idea to inspect your bike for damage after a crash. That is something you should do with steel, aluminium and titanium too.
 
#45 ·
Not to mention structurally damaged carbon is very easy to spot given it isn't painted and you know what to look for. Hopefully you are giving your bike a quick look over before rides regardless of what it is made of.
 
#46 ·
From all the examples I've seen, yes Carbon has a greater failure point than alum or steel. However that failure is complete and sudden. The other popular materials do not possess this failure characteristic.

Can I sustain a regimen of keeping a clean bike and performing adequate examination of structure damage after each bang/ding/crash ? I know I can't..
 
#47 ·
Just like steel or AL bikes there are durable carbon frames and ones that aren't. You'll only be able to get a handle on how this bike holds up once there are a few hundred out in the wild getting abused.

The manufacturer will tell you they are bomber - they have to say that. Fan boys will tell you they are bomber - they have to say that. It's possible they are correct, but you won't know for a while.

If you ride and crash on rocky trails carbon durability would be more of a concern than if you ride buff soft terrain or snow/sand.

At this point the question is do you want a light fat bike bad enough to pay the $$ and be a beta tester for Salsa? If not just wait a season and see what happens.
 
#48 ·
boogman said:
From all the examples I've seen, yes Carbon has a greater failure point than alum or steel. However that failure is complete and sudden. The other popular materials do not possess this failure characteristic.

Can I sustain a regimen of keeping a clean bike and performing adequate examination of structure damage after each bang/ding/crash ? I know I can't..
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It really isn't a matter of material. A frame that relies on structural strength may fail suddenly if the structure is compromised. That could be a small dent on a alumium frame or maybe stress caused by the welding process of a steel frame. You won't care about the material when your toptube is suddenly cut in half or the seatstays break loose from the seattube. It could be just the smallest dent there. It's really not a bad idea to give a few minutes to examine your bike every now and then.
 
#50 ·
boogman said:
From all the examples I've seen, yes Carbon has a greater failure point than alum or steel. However that failure is complete and sudden.
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As materials science professor friend of mine said, carbon may have the potential to be one f the strongest building blocks, but every one of it's failure modes is catastrophic.

And considering how much extra cash you have to lay out to ride at high speed on those catastrophic failure modes, and how many manufacturers will only offer a very limited warranty time frame on said frames? I'll let my dollars fall on materials I can actually trust long term, that carries a legit lifetime warranty , and take a dump before I ride to save far more weight than all that plastic will net me......

Hey, just me, ride whatever you like, I am!
 
#51 ·
clunkklonk said:
It really isn't a matter of material.
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This idea. Exactly.

When I said let's stay on topic, I meant: let's talk about this bike. Does the shape appeal to you? The parts? The paint job (or lack of)?

Every time carbon gets brought up, there's some armchair engineer argument about when and how it breaks. As it stands, the frames I've seen break in person were steel, and in one case aluminum. It hasn't happened yet here, but I stop paying attention when someone says aluminum is stiffer than steel (****, look it up!).

Does that mean they were built wrong for the rider on them? Yes, in most of the cases! A metallic SNAP is a pretty nasty sound out in the woods.

BUT! Here I am, just a guy, with some anecdotal experiences.

boogman, you are welcome to distrust carbon - trust in your bike makes you ride with a clear head - but I think your fears are antiquated.

I'm also not convinced from a maintenance perspective, that it's too much to look at your frame now and then. I look at my frame after a really nasty crash, sure. If it was bad enough a spill to give me an adrenaline rush, yeah I'll look at it. Even a Surly.

Even my bamboo bike. Not the front triangle - that **** is bomb proof. But I'll look at the lugs, and the rear triangle.

Now if you are MendonCycleSmith and want to talk about carbon price gouging, I'm not going to argue with you there. I get my prepreg at $18 a pound manufacturer direct. The rest of the cost is recouping mold costs, and manual labor on layup. Are the prices honest? I'm not sure yet, still in R&D here. I'd like them to be lower.

So anyway - is this bike cool to you?
 
#52 ·
MendonCycleSmith said:
I'll let my dollars fall on materials I can actually trust long term, that carries a legit lifetime warranty , and take a dump before I ride to save far more weight than all that plastic will net me......
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Agreed - I don't like short warranties. I want to own a bike that will last. Carbon has a fantastic fatigue life, but if the manufacturer made durability sacrifices to achieve a Wünder Material kind of weight, then I don't want to own it.

That notion certainly begs the question of, why pay so much for carbon, then? I totally get it.
 
#53 ·
I'm going to get this last thought off my chest and I'll shut up.

Given my experiences on trail with frame failures - once each rider detected an "oh no, that's not good" level crack or dent, they all decide to limp toward the trail head.

Guess how far they made it? One of them made it about 50 feet on level, smooth trail. *All* of them had a complete tube failure, regardless of material. No weld failures, which was certainly confidence inspiring in terms of workmanship.

So, after a failure, what do you do? Fix or replace? If you're out of warranty, I'm going to argue that aluminum has the most hassle.

With steel, you find a local dude and get a weld fixed, or make some cuts and patch in something. With thin "light" steel... that might not be a safe bet.

With carbon, you'd be surprised, you can find a person to do carbon repair. Matt Appleman for instance.

Aluminum might be more of a hassle to find someone with a big curing oven. You can't (EDIT: weld) aluminum and then just go ride on it. Note my use of the word "might" here.

EDIT: I accidentally a word ;)
 
#54 ·
Foundry has a what, 10 year warranty on their carbon? And let's not put steel up on some lofty durability pedestal after what's going on with certain snowblind frames.
 
#55 ·
Go ahead and bash away, but why aren't more companies trying to push for more manufacturing in the U.S.? Are the Chinese really that much better than us, or does it boil down to profit margins? Are the Chinese workers being paid fair wages? What does it actually cost to get a carbon frame made in China? Maybe I'm an idiot. I would love to really see data/information on these Chinese factories. Does anybody else out there care about any of these issues?
 
#57 ·
It's great to see carbon options popping up. It's a good looking bike. I especially like the bolt through axles, something I have been getting monotonous about as a necessary improvement.

OK the cost is high, but early adopters willing to pay high prices are needed to make the risk of a new product worthwhile. Personally, I'll wait until the price drops, but as a person who likes a light bike I'm sure I'll be on a carbon fatbike (or Ti) in the next couple of years.

I'm amused by the anti-carbon brigade. I've heard those sentiments uttered by a rider who had been happily riding around on his carbon fork for over a year - he was explaining why he wasn't going to buy a carbon frame.

I'm from the lugged frame generation and when welded frames were becoming common, there was a lot of that sort of nay saying too, so it's just the cycling worls's notorious conservatism at work.
 
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#59 ·
JYB said:
Go ahead and bash away, but why aren't more companies trying to push for more manufacturing in the U.S.? Are the Chinese really that much better than us, or does it boil down to profit margins? Are the Chinese workers being paid fair wages? What does it actually cost to get a carbon frame made in China? Maybe I'm an idiot. I would love to really see data/information on these Chinese factories. Does anybody else out there care about any of these issues?
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Taiwan most likely, not China. (Taiwan is probably closer to South Korea and Japan in work conditions, and not similar at all to a factory in China)
 
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