On Monday, August 28, 2017 at 10:22:25 PM UTC+1, wrote:
We might as well pick up this argument here again because the cost of carbon fiber has been falling like a log. You can now buy carbon fiber bikes for the same or less than aluminum or steel of the same quality and with the same component sets on them.

I have been convinced in email conversations with engineers are large manufacturers that you can build a carbon fiber frame and fork with the ability to last a lifetime.

But that is not what they are designing. They are using a light material to manufacture the lightest possible bikes. They are competing with each other to make a lighter bike. The engineers are stuck trying to put as much reliability into these frames as possible for their weights.

It was bound to happen with the increase in plastic manufacturing capacity. We've seen it with every new material that appeared. Sharfie will be here shortly to give you chapter and verse,, starting with the switchover from steel to ali.

It may just be that I don't watch the general bike market closely enough because I'm into steel custom bikes as a deliberate choice (as well as having steel besically enforced on me because that's what people at that end of the market build touring bikes in, though if you insist you can also get stainless steel or titanium) but I'm taking aboard a distinct impression taking carbon fibre is taking quite a bit longer to displace ali in the mainstream by comparison to the speed with which ali took over from steel for box-shifter bikes.

Andre Jute
Who strayed from the normative?