On Aug 13, 5:12 pm, Dave wrote:
Now that there are a large number of very lightweight carbon mountain
bikes on the market, anyone care to comment on how well they hold up
under real-world conditions? High end hardtail carbon frames are now
only slightly heavier than carbon road frames.

Can these bikes survive rock impacts, crashes, etc, as well as
aluminum bikes? Are those of you in the retail world seeing customers
come in with ruined bikes?

While I don't ride CF, from what I've een from friends that ride CF
and from what I've read, there is no reason for CF not to do just
fine. You can get a very light CF frame too that will likely do great.

Depending on terrain, however, I think, again, from my own experience,
that the most important thing is good suspension. A well designed
frame with good suspension is more important to me than the material
if you are going to go through really rough stuff. Aluminum can be
almost as light as CF but a lot less expensive. So, for MTB frames I
would think that AL and suspension make the best combination of
efficiency and value. There are people that still ride hard tails.
However, they don't go where the full suspensions go and in rough
stuff they don't climb like full suspension bikes.