this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Death by hubris
Huh, I didn't even know carbon fiber had a shelf life, I figured it'd be pretty stable over time.
Here's the reason why, in case anyone's curious (I know I was):
wait wait wait. Does that mean carbon fiber bike frames are likely to bust in a crash after a few years??!!!
are you going to be biking in water deeper than 1500 ft?
If I buy this now I don't want to rule out the possibility I may do that one day.
so the storage life assumes being under 1500 ft of water??? (edited. sorry guys was playing with settings and put the one that auto adds ats. going to take that back out.)
They are known to be more fragile than frames and forks made of other materials. They need to be checked regularly for tiny fractures that could lead to a sudden collapse, and if they get hit from the side they can be more easily damaged since the tubes are designed for longitudinal strength. I'm sticking to aluminium.
Well hot damn, glad I didn't get a CF hybrid bike. I was thinking about a CF fork upgrade for my bike, but I think I'll just burn the extra calories instead hahaha
This site says about 10 year life.
ty sir. that makes it not so bad. still I have had some bikes for decades. I was never able to afford carbon fiber anyway but now I think I will avoid even if it became cheap. sorta wish the carboard bike had become a thing though.
This is part of why some of us never stopped riding steel frame bikes.
They are likely to bust in a crash, period. But without any crashes, yes, they degrade over years of sunlight and exposure to the elements, and that is something that you should always calculate in your risk assessment of the bike that you ride.
"I'm just like Tony Stark, making a sub out of a box of scraps!"
Seems like another case where his aerospace background served him poorly as well. It was almost like he thought, "Well, there's not going to be any torsional stresses on a simple tube or exposure to radiation like there'd be at altitude. So let's look at the strength of the composite, the pressure at the Titanic's depth, and build the tube one centimeter thicker than than the table says you need. See? Water is easy-peasy!"
If a material is known to have a component of it degrade over time, why on earth would you use an expired material in an application that at its prime it's already not suitable for?!
It's in line with other behaviour he showed tbh. Like he acted like rules, regulations and warnings are kind of pointless or at least are overly careful. So probably he thought "this still works, it isnt broken so they're probably just not using it because they're overly cautious." Or MAYBE he thought "well its only gonna be used for a few hours at a time, and by the time it gets too bad to use i will have made enough money to buy better and make a replacement." On news on TV a reporter said that guy told he wanted to be an astronaut before but was not allowed bc of his eyesight?+ Maybe that was a regulation that he thought was "pointless," stopped him from doing what he really wanted, and he just never got over it. Which is a bit sad if so but not excuse..
Weird is some people who are alive who like him being like "nooo he was always so careful about everything how could this happen." I think he was just good at rationalizing his actions and explaining them in a way that convinced those people but that doesn't mean he actually was using a perspective of safety even if he framed it that way.
+(Interview from 2017. Funny is back then he said the price is like 105,000 dollars per person, which less than half of what those people paid the last time. Also in the interview he didnt say why he didnt get to be an astronaut, it was a reporter who said he told him he didnt get to because of his eyesight but in this interview he just said that he wanted to be an astronaut but this is like exploring another planet and he wanted to for his whole life.)