: fear of carbon

By: fat-lenny | 2 Comments » |

For some reason, despite a major need for one of those old carbon Proflex/K2 bikes, I have always had a fear of all things carbon. Well founded fear or completely irrational?Probably the latter and as such I recently had been starting to be swayed towards its pretty looks. Some nice Ritchey parts (seat post and bars) had found their way onto my main ride and have been great. No complaints at all with them and the actual feel of the bars is better than anything I have used before.

That opinion swaying towards the use of carbon may have been forever destroyed today by a new set of bars.  Ive been in the process of building up a 1×9 hardtail, I considered a carbon frame for the job and ended up going steel. Anyway, the finishing touches were done today, gears set up, forks tweaked and all the final adjustments to make the brakes rub free were complete. I roll the bike out the front and push down on the bars to feel the forks and I hear the dreaded creeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkk.

Hmmmmmmm, stem was done up correctly, not happy with the sound though (although I did get a similar sound on my main bike yesterday). About three seconds of inspection and there it is in all its glory, a wonderful crack in the brand new bars just where the rise is.

Paranoia has kicked in about the similar sounds on my other bike and I am thinking pretty seriously about a carbon clear out. Probably all in my head, but after almost conquering my fears I am not sure I can overcome this setback. Shame because it looks so nice.

Hopefully the manufacturer in question can sort this out, but the question still remains, can I get my head around carbon or will I forever slip back into the darkages?

 

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So far, 2 people have said: about “fear of carbon”:

1. Wow, just put carbon bars on my new Scott genius carbon bike. Hope they hold up. Were the bars brand new? Did you use a torque wrench to tighten the stem bolts? Seems strange to break by just testing the shocks. What were they?

Shoogyboom

2. I’ve run some carbon ritchey bars for about 4 years and they have been bulletproof.

   The ones in the pictures were bought brand new late last year and then left on the shelf at home. All the bolts were done up to specification as well. Mind you the crack is a few inches from the stem and runs around the bar.

   I’ll.hold off on naming names while I am talking to the distributed.

Sammydog

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