Quote Originally Posted by Hanneke View Post
Yeah, I like that idea... everyone is rather puzzled by my bike, on the racing scene... but when the actually dare to lift it up and have a go are pleasantly surprised that a bike that isn't carbon can be so good and so light... I think the carbon thing is a fad!
I wrote an article on different frame materials a while ago for 220 Triathlon and interviewed Rohan Dubash.


Rohan Dubash has nearly 30 years of experience in specialist bike retail. In that time he’s seen trends come and go and has probably built more bespoke bikes than is healthy for one individual. Formerly of Cycles Dauphin he’s recently joined the team at Sigma Sport. He writes for a number of publications including Roleur, gives talks on bike building and is a self-confessed “bike geek”.

“I don’t have a problem with carbon as a material but just feel it might not be quite a utilitarian as it’s become. You have to treat it with respect and be aware, that after a crash, it might appear to be fine but in reality be fatally structurally flawed. Steel, alloy and titanium all show damage in a pretty obvious way but with carbon it can easily be hidden. It’s also hard to differentiate between good and poor quality carbon as, unlike the standard tubing ratings of the other materials, carbon is a complete unknown. I worry that people will buy a cheap £1000 carbon bike and treat it like any day-to-day ride. You can’t just chuck a carbon bike in the shed covered in s**t on a daily basis and expect it to last. I think in a few years time the ease of availability of carbon frames will come back and bite us with a spate of frame failures and associate legal fall-out. It’s so easy to crush a set of carbon bars with the bike in a work stand, with light-weight high-end gear comes more responsibility.”

So, the killer question. One bike, and one bike only, for the rest of your life?

“Well, let’s rule out carbon for the reasons above, alloy won’t last a lifetime and steel will eventually rust. I guess it’d have to be titanium, but I’d insist it was the highest quality and that every tube was bespoke to my specifications. Like everything you get what you pay for and you’d have to pay a lot but it would last a lifetime.”