Is this bike any good?

[xPOPPABEARx]

Sorry to read about your van but I think the fates have conspired in your favour. You may well have bought a bike you didn't really want.

Slightly cheaper thing but I recently bought a top tube bag. It's really nice, I like it and don't want to return it. I also know it doesn't really fit my bike, will irritate me and after a few rides I'll chuck it in the cupboard.

I'm having the most ridiculously hard time persuading myself to return it to Wiggle!

Yeah the van was a total surprise and took us for a loop.
It sucks.
Exactly that's how I am, I won't return most things and will just chuck it up as a loss and keep a hold of it hoping one day I'll use it for something else.
I get that completely. Lol

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I work with steel and it's pretty much impossible to notice a potentially fatal fracture with the naked eye.

When steel fails, it goes from one piece into two without any warning.

Carbon fibre is exactly what it says it is. It's carbon fibre bound with resins and it doesn't snap like a bit of rigid steel.

It has the ability to take up road shocks without the minor fractures which accumulate in steel over the years.

Get a piece of steel bike frame tubing, and get a piece of carbon fibre bike frame tubing. Beat each one of them with a hammer an equal number of times, until the first one fails completely. Then come back and tell me which material failed first. It won't be the steel.

 

[Reynard]

Get a piece of steel bike frame tubing, and get a piece of carbon fibre bike frame tubing. Beat each one of them with a hammer an equal number of times, until the first one fails completely. Then come back and tell me which material failed first. It won't be the steel.

Ah, but one of the materials is isotropic, and the other is not. CFRP has different failure modes depending on where you hit it and what the layup is.

 

[PaulSB]

Get a piece of steel bike frame tubing, and get a piece of carbon fibre bike frame tubing. Beat each one of them with a hammer an equal number of times, until the first one fails completely. Then come back and tell me which material failed first. It won't be the steel.

I get your point but there are too many variables in that test to give a valid result.