Lv426 wrote:froze wrote:Odd because I don't know of any bike mechanic who doesn't use a torque wrench and the one guy I know has 17 or so years doing this work. Those that say they can do it by touch I kind of cringe at, what happens if he misjudges once and something cracks or breaks? who gets the blame? There are even certain things on non CF bikes that are requiring the use of a torq wrench so this something exclusive for carbon, but carbon is more fragile to cracking from pressure, you can test this yourself by going down to a bike shop and secretly walk over to a CF road bike and take your thumb and index finger and try squeezing the middle of the top tube and you should feel it give slightly, i've done this, and thoughts of buying a CF bike were erased from my mind. And by the way, the mechanic who has 17 or so year of experience told me he would never own a CF bike, somethings to think about.
I'd love a carbon bike . A really light one. Steel , alloy .carbon. It can all break. Carbon seems to be the choice of pro teams. I mean if you look at the weight of components you can easily get a steel bike down to uci limit . There was one bike I saw that was 11 pounds and it was steel ..can't remember who made it maybe apple or English . Some company like that,carbon has huge advantages in the shapes you can make the tubes not so easy with other materials. Mechanics don't tend ride bikes they just fix them

I see, if the pros use it then we all should be using because it's all good. Maybe you should read this first before you comment on what pros are using:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/sports/cycling/as-technology-makes-bicycles-lighter-and-faster-it8217s-the-cyclists-falling-harder.html?mcubz=0 Besides the stuff that pro cyclists use isn't stuff that the average or even above average cyclist needs to be getting because for one that stuff cost a lot of money, and two the average cyclist will never take advantage of it's abilities, so it's just wasted money with the sole purpose to show off. Yes I know, wealthy people have the right to buy whatever they want and that's fine, but the reason they buy a Rolls Royce Phantom, or a Hennessey Venom GT, is for one thing and one thing only...to show off, there is no place in America where you can go and let the Hennessey open up to 270 mph, so if you can't use all that speed why does a person buy it? to show off. If a cyclist can't maintain the average speed of a pro cyclist but owns a $15,000 bike that was for that purpose why did they buy it? to show off. See a common denominator there yet?
That 11 pound steel bike is made by English Cycles and is a one of kind, it's not all steel, as the fork is CF, and the seat tube is CF. However the lightest production steel bike with a CF fork is 13.5 pounds made by Rodriguez Cycles called the Outlaw Red Lite, but it's rather expensive at $11,000, but I'm sure if English Cycles decided to sell that one of kind bike it would go for a lot more than $11,000. The weird thing about some of these prices that some of the new bikes go for, like the Cervelo P5x ETap Tri bike that cost $15,000, is that you can get a Suzuki 1300 Hayabusa, or the BMW S1000RR, or a Chevy Sonic for that kind of money, and I doubt it VERY seriously that the bicycle has more technology in it than either of those motorcycles or the car! Can we spell S C A M??
But I'm off the subject, why? to make a point that just because a pro cyclist gets such and such bike doesn't mean it makes sense for us to go out and get it too, the pros get their bikes for free, we don't have that luxury, and if they crash it they get another for free. By the way, when pros do training rides, they ride much cheaper bikes...hmmm.