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There's No Good Reason to Buy a Carbon Bike
(www.outsideonline.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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I did not expect this article to recommend steel bikes as alternatives. I fully expected to read aluminium especially with the advanced tube types available now.
Also, although the aerodynamic benefits of carbon are difficult for amateurs to truly appreciate, the weight advantage that carbon bikes or even carbon parts offer, can't be ignored. Even replacing the front fork with a carbon fork would remove a lot of unwanted weight that you'd feel even on the first run!
Less people steal steel than carbon, I'd assume.
Does carbon have the same longevity and load characteristics as steel?
Those are value judgements. How does a carbon bike get stolen if it's never locked in a public place? Why would a carbon bike be loaded with anything more than a bottle of water and a small saddle bag?
These considerations are important for commuting, touring, and other fun activities, but are perhaps less important for the bike racer.
You’re in the “fuckcars” community. Bikes are part of non-car transportation. How do you use a bike as an primary or secondary form of transportation if you never park in a public place or carry anything more than a bottle of water and a small saddle bag?
I've had many coworkers roll into the office with their carbon bikes because it makes quick work of a long commute and it's so easy to carry a lightweight machine up the office stairs. They'd wear a backpack if they needed to carry a laptop. No cars involved; not even a bus.
There's no need to gatekeep which kind of bike someone chooses to use when the objective is to not drive a car. They can ride a carbon bike if they want too.
Not every bike needs to be for transport. Also, I've brought my carbon bike in my office at more than one job. My commute was already 1 hour each way with a nice road bike. My hybrid might be nice for running errands, but there's no way I'd have made the trip to work with that. Now I have an ebike that makes it even easier to do the trip to work (doesn't save much time except when there's a headwind, but I don't get as sweaty). But if I didn't live on the ground floor, there's no way I'd be able to deal with getting that up and down stairs every day.
Somewhere like the Netherlands, every bike racer is going to have at least two bikes: a regular commuting 'granny bike', and a racing roadbike.
Just as it's common for a runner to have regular-ass shoes for going grocery shopping and a pair of running shoes they only really use when training for a marathon, or for reasonably well-off car/ motorcycle enthusiasts to have a more practical regular car they use for daily driving and a less practical sporty vehicle for pleasure drives.
Road bikes like you see in the Tour de France aren't really a practical form of transportation. You have special shoes that clip to the pedals, you wear lycra bike shorts, etc.