How did I crack my carbon frame?

[ayceejay]

Which is the best material for bicycle frames, carbon fiber or cheese?
Are you under the impression that frames made from carbon fibre are the only frames susceptible to accidental damage?

 

[MikeW-71]

Workstand clamps don't apply pressure uniformly, so I understand that the SOP for clamping a carbon bike in a workstand is to insert a metal seatpost and then clamp the stand to that.

Won't work for my carbon Giant, it has an aero carbon seatpost. There is an alloy version, but it's Giant specific. I clamp the bike round the seatpost, no problems.

As to the OP's damage, I agree with others. Possibly crushed, but I think it's most likely something fell on it on the Eurostar or they handled it to roughly and banged it into something.

 

[MikeW-71]

That is an interesting article which leads me to this question: Which is the best material for bicycle frames, carbon fiber or cheese?

They do say that this is particularly for the superlight carbon frames. I have tried just now and I can't deform any of the tubes on my bike with my fingers, so I'm not worried about it at all. It's tough.

 

[User16625]

They do say that this is particularly for the superlight carbon frames. I have tried just now and I can't deform any of the tubes on my bike with my fingers, so I'm not worried about it at all. It's tough.

Never tried the deformation thing, but I dont have a clamp stand and never intended to get one. That article has definitely made me paranoid about taking it to a LBS. Fortunately I can do most things myself except for wheel bearings and truing. So I could still leave the bike itself at home anyway.

 

[fossyant]

I can squeeze the down tube on my alloy fixed gear - it's a teardrop shape and the sides can be squeezed slightly... Anyone old enough will remember 'tinging' tubes on steel bikes with the finger nail - you'd be seeing how 'super thin' the tubes were on the high end stuff.

Anything can be damaged by side impacts. I never took my high end steel bike away with me incase someone pranged it, or put something heavy on the frame. We used bags but had the dropouts braced with axel inserts, then had pipe lagging over each tube, then heavy duty foam over the whole bike. They didn't have the hard cases then.