carbon fiber motorcycle wheels....

Yup, they resulted in a spun rod bearing.

 

Wow that is scary on so many levels....

 

A lot of guys have gone away from carbon for rampage and even downhill. I was talking to a few of the tech's at snowshoe last year about it when I noticed Hanna, Hart, and Brosnan weren't using them. There were a few crucial races that guys lost from failures and he said the weight savings wasn't worth the possible failures.

 

As stated above...composites are great in general and awesome for a lot of items. Wheels...meh.

Normal composites (fiberglass/unsaturated resin; CF/epoxy; etc) typically fail catastrophically and do not have good impact strength. They are perfectly fine for items that dont need impact.

Guess what...wheels need impact strength. I wouldnt use CF wheels unless I had access to/or could afford NDT (Xray etc) every so often and especially after a "hit".

The other alternative is to make them so overbuilt they are heavier and have a large MOI than AL or steel...and that kind of defeats the purpose.

CF wheels...Just say NO!

 

So what about boats? They are building 40+ foot go fast center consoles with 5 600HP outboards in CF? I'd imagine they flex a ton. Are there different resins that allow more flex, like fiberglass?

Not trying to argue, just curious.

 

#3, right?

 

I understand who they were attacking.

I guess I just didn’t read into it that far.

 

It depends if the boats are lay up or pre-preg fiber. Layup CF is the same as polyester (close enough for this) where you would lay up the fibers in the direction you need to create strength and soak the layers with resin. Pre-preg is cloth that has temperature and pressure activated resin where you need an autoclave to activate the resin, which adds complexity.

I know that this is an over-generalization, bu I believe that wheels and bicycle frames are pre-preg and most CF boats are layup due to the size of the autoclave. So there is a difference, but without knowing the process for each, it's hard to differentiate processes and life cycles/longevity.

 

That's the one.

 

Precisely.

 

A friend had two CF MTB swingarm failures. The second was the warranty replacement of the first and a completely different brand under their umbrella and it broke, too. He’s on alloy stuff, now.

 

for sure man. the number of snapped chains and flat tires that have decided the Top 5 in the last 2-3 years at a bunch of rounds has been ridiculous. its funny how like... you'll ride your bike all season on a chain and be totally fine. most of these dudes too while at home. then they go to an event, sponsored by a major team, to where they're putting in new chains like every day and shit, and they still manage to snap them.

 

Will they take white paint?

 

I’ve got a full carbon mountain bike frame.


Now I’m worried

 

i had THREE crank failures before i just had enough. i had carbon everything road bikes from about 04' to 10'. when i started getting back into mtb'ing, my first build had X.0 carbon cranks. i'm a bigger dude at, what was 190lbs. and is now more cause older and fatter, and i can crank out some torque. i broke the pedal insert away from the carbon 3 different times, so 2 warranties, before i finally just gave up and sold the last set as new as soon as i got em'. the carbon itself didn't fail tho i will say. but some shit just isn't meant to be. Race Face Atlas AM cranks ever since and not a single issue. no stupid inserts, no non-sense. the mtb though i literally use all the time. i wanna not worry about it. a motorbike i would use once every month or two, i'm more inclined to try carbon stuffs just because its not a workhorse getting abused constantly.

i DO have carbon wheels for one of my motorbike builds though... and forks... and a monocoque seat/tank. we'll see how all those get on i guess. hopefully i don't die. forks seem to be holding up on some of the other racers i've seen using them. will most likely just have to do a lot of inspecting each time before use.

 

I wonder if there was ever a failure with the Carbon Ohlins forks used in MotoGP and if they replace them every race or few rounds....

 

I have the same crankset and their X0 RD. I keep a spare RD in my Camelbak, for the obvious.

I gave away a 606 10spd wheelset to an Olympic hopeful to use, since I wasn’t using them, so no CF wheelsets in my inventory.

 

i still have a pre-clutch X.0 9sp rear mech on my DH bike. i've had it for i think like 10 years. its flawless. but then i've never smacked it on anything to break the carbon arm, and i only use that bike sparingly, and it doesn't get a lot of gear changes or pedaling... so obviously its not being worked terribly hard. i heard the newer ones took a total shit quality wise though. either way, i don't care much for SRAM shit any more, but going from a road bike with all Red shit to mtb'ing, it was the first choice to start.