— Rivendell News —

Followups on Grant's carbon bashing, now with Dead Squirrel Scrolls

March 6, 2010

Some on the Riv Forum---one of the most polite and friendly groups on the net---don't like it when I "bash carbon", and so...

Listen (or don't...). If you'd seen what I've seen, and heard the stories I've heard, and you had the podium I have and didn't use it---I'd call you irresponsible (and I'd expect to be called the same, if you knew what I'd seen and saw me saying nothing).

It would be a luxury to be a casual observer in this, and it's a burden to not be one. It puts me in the position of either not saying anything and calling myself a schmuck for it; or saying something and being called a schmuck for it. Since I don't go to bed with you every night, I defer to me.

Carbon has many phenomenal properties, and under the best conditions it is THEORETICALLY superior to any other structural material. But carbon is not carbon is not carbon. Just being "carbon fiber" doesn't mean anything....except lightness, and I guess that means a lot in some circles. It is the lowest common denominator.

Boeing spends tens of millions of dollars and a decade testing the carbon it uses in its airplanes, and its QC standards are way higher than those in the bike industry.

The bike industry doesn't do that kind of testing. It recognizes a trend and hops on it fast. I'm not saying NO testing, but it can't afford the rigorous testing employed by the aerospace makers. If the testing is so good, how come so many carbon bits fail? Carbon is like a super-buff boxer with lightning-fast hands, a long reach, trained by Angelo Dundee, but with a 21-20-3 record.

About two and a half years ago, 63-year old bike shop owner Ed McLaughlin was riding in a group of riders, slowly noodling along a mulit-use path at 8mph. He rode into a bollard, his fork snapped, and he's a quadriplegic now. If his fork were steel, I'd bet a million bucks he'd have felt a jolt, maybe crashed, but not as dramatically. What's done is done, and it's too bad we can't turn back the clock and intervene. So we (I) intervene when I can, and that's now.

Is it better to not mention this or better to mention it in the hope that it'll give somebody out there pause before buying the same new bike he was riding (he was a bike shop owner, after all). Is this a bad use of "using" Ed's tragic accident to sell a few steel forks? You can twist it any way you like, but I'm pretty sure nobody who knows me would twist it that-a-way.

A friend of one of my employees took his carbon mtn bike out on its maiden ride, rode over a dip (compressing bump), and the fork snapped. The company gave him a new one. Would you ride the new one? For how long, and with how much confidence? He sold it---which, I suppose, has its own bag of karma, but at least he was off that bike.

I could go on. I've had sword fights with carbon and steel forks. A fresh carbon fork can buckle a steel fork. But "buckling" isn't losing, and this is what's so important to understand if you have any hope of seeing straight with these failures. Buckling is what a structure ought to do when it's traumatized by a blow. Steel nails buckle when mis hit, but can be straightened again. Carbon nails, like carbon frames and forks don't buckle. A carbon fork that's been compromised by a gouge (I've done this, I've had this sword fight) will snap in half when smacked by a steel fork with a similar gouge.

Bike forks aren't swords, but the sword fight speaks clearly to how steel and carbon respond to trauma, and trauma can happen on a bike ride. It does all the time.

You WANT a fork that bends and buckles. There's no advantage to shattering----- Shattering is dangerous, and yet, that's what carbon forks do.

All to save twelve ounces, and you get horrible tire clearance, too (on a road fork).
Some people on the Forum don't like it when I say bad things about carbon.

I wish this weren't the case, and maybe it won't always be the case. But right now it IS the case.

I could (hypothetically) sit tight in our steel-bike niche and figure we'll get our share of business playing the "classic" or "nostalgic" angle, but I don't like angles of any kind. And to play up steel on the basis of the past, to promote it as the underdog--so let's vote for it---doesn't address what really matters: Steel is the safest frame and fork material in the world. And that alone makes it the best. It "fails" slowly and predictably. It is more tolerant of internal gremlins and external gouges than any other material. It's what you want to trust your neck to.

I'm not going to spout out about this neverendingly, but I feel like I have to say something. I fully recognize that stating these things so declaratively makes me look like a jerk, somebody with some kind of steel axe to grind---and by the way, why can't Grant just do his quaint tweed-n-steel thing and be a meek mole in the peat bog?

I would LOVE to be able to, but --- now, don't take this the wrong way ---- I know too much, I've seen too much, so I can't just shut up.

No doubt steel forks break, too. And statistically, we're bound to have it happen here. No doubt some people will delight in that happening, in seeing me and Rivendell embarassed, shamed, and shut up.

But two key things: It won't be because we were too lazy to build forks ourselves, or because we were being guided by the market, or because we thought it was important to save 12 ounces on a bike-and-rider combo that weights 160 pounds or more.

In the meantime, we have to make forks, and the best thing to make them out of is steel. The new NOMOCA forks we're coming out with are not a smart business move, but it's something we can do.

What good am I, if I know and don't do?
If I see and don't say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin' sky
What good am I?

--Bob Dylan.

Letter from Joe Thomas.

I read your thoughts on the RBW site and thought I'd chime in. I'll preface this by stating that while I'm not a material scientist, I do have a mechanical engineering degree and I've worked in system safety and reliability on the space station and space shuttle programs for the last 22 years.

That said, carbon fiber is a wonderful material *IF* it's laid up in a manner appropriate for its intended use.No one would argue that it's very strong but the key is the stiffness

.It can be made to be incomparably stiff, as in a Formula 1 race car chassis, or fantastically flexible, as in a Shakespeare Ugly Stik fishing rod.

What it can't be, though, is resilient. Either it works or it doesn't; there's no in-between. Damage it and it's done.

Ever seen an off-road vehicle or race car with a carbon roll cage? No, and you won't because it doesn't give. When it fails, it fails completely. Now, I can see that it's a great RACE bike material, if you're a high level professional competitor who doesn't have to ride the same bike for more than a season or two but for the recreational rider who can't afford to plop down several K every few years (and who isn't a delusional racer wannabe), it makes little sense.

This effect is magnified for anyone who tours. If you suffer even a mild structural failure with a carbon bike, your tour is over. There's no fixing that. In contrast, the local welder in Quinter, Kansas, can shore up your steel bike well enough to let you finish the ride. Aluminum and titanium are also fixable but in decreasing degree due to the more specialized skill required. Carbon has its place in the bike world, no doubt, but it's far from the be-all, end-all of materials.
--Joe Thomas

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