Hi all,
Finally splurged on a full carbon bike. I spent a pretty penny on it and now I am a bit skiddish to take to off road riding. Its a Trek Boone 6 - carbon cyclocross bike. Obviously, its meant to ride on a CX course, but they rarely have actual gravel and rocky bits, etc.
Anyone ride a carbon frame bike on gravel and have an opinion on its durability? Im mostly concerned about gravel rock bits shooting up and knocking into the frame, etc. I dont care about paint chips, etc, just mostly concerned about something hitting the frame hard enough to crack it and make it not structurally sound. Thanks
-link me to an old thread if this has considerable overlap
There have been carbon mountain bikes for decades. Carbon offroad frames are very sturdy and do not break easily. Depending on how many rock strikes you expect, you can either go with the frame manufacturer’s option (likely just fine), transparent frame tape to protect the paint and afford a minimum level of protection to something sturdier. You see the latter on trail bikes sometimes.
But for a gravel bike, that level of protection seems overkill.
PS I don’t own a carbon gravel bike, only a carbon hardtail and a carbon aero road bike. Even on my aero road bike I only worry about the paint when I ride some mild gravel.
I beat the shit out of my Salsa Warbird. I consistently ride/race courses that absolutely should be ridden with suspension. Carbon is solid. You’ll blow your rims up before your bike.
From personal experience on both carbon and alu, you get a lot of these.
My buddy did this, adding a couple hundred grams to a very expensive super-light gravel carbon bike. I admire that it might look a bit shinier for longer.
I haven’t weighed them, but even if I put transparent frame tape on my entire bike, I doubt I’d add several hundred grams. According to this Pinbike article a complete wrap of a mountain bike will add about 40 g. If you only protect exposed regions such as the bottom side of your down tube, I think you’ll add just a few g. I’d start with that and see how it goes.
It also depends a little bit on your attitude to what your bike should look like after hours and hours of appropriate use. On a mountain bike, scratches are part of the game. On a road bike, maybe less so.
I haven’t weighed them, but even if I put transparent frame tape on my entire bike, I doubt I’d add several hundred grams. According to this Pinbike article a complete wrap of a mountain bike will add about 40 g. If you only protect exposed regions such as the bottom side of your down tube, I think you’ll add just a few g. I’d start with that and see how it goes.
It will be fine with normal riding. Small stones will sometimes pop up from the front tire and hit the down tube or bottom bracket area, and you’ll hear a clack. But the bike will be able to withstand those.
You do want to be careful about not letting the bike hit solid/heavy sharp edged rocks - eg if the bike falls, or in a crash.
I have cracked a carbon MTB frame when descending fast on desert rock, when a large sharp rock popped out from under the front wheel and hit the downtube. But that was somewhat of a freak occurrence - even for MTB, and I’ve never had anything close happen to my gravel bike.
Given that all the bikes I own are carbon, I can’t say I have any concerns about carbon durability.
Plus, we should not forget that metal frames have failure modes, too. A tube can be severely bent or dented, and make the frame unsafe to ride. Welds can break.
Carbon frames are particularly susceptible to impacts by sharp objects and you overtightening bolts. (I speak from own experience on the latter. Well, I wanted wider handlebars anyway … )
Carbon layups have improved over the years but do vary from company to company. Some years back some Niner frames were more prone to cracks and I had a hairline develop in a first gen Jet 9 RDO frame. A year or two later Niner moved to an entirely new manufacturing facility.
Trek seems to have their carbon frames dialed and you don’t hear much chatter about failures. I currently ride an Emonda, Checkpoint SLR and Supercaliber and all three have been rock solid and exposed to a fair bit of heavy use. I took the Emonda around the East Maui Loop a few times this winter and it held up great. I suspect the Boone will hold up just find on gravel.
Rather than taping the whole frame, you may want to consider taping just the downtube. On my Checkpoint SLR there is a plastic/rubber cover on the lower part of the downtube. Trek opted to give the bike extra protection in this area. I then put a strip of wide helicopter tape on the remaining upper part of the downtube. This stuff is fair thick and strong and fends off the rock strikes really well.
KW - I don’t mean to belittle your question, anything can and does happen in this crazy world. You are sure to find 1 off examples where something bad happened with any equipment, but carbon frames have been used off road for close to 20 years now. It is fine.
Can use some clear tape for paint protection, otherwise, go get that bike dirty.
Carbon is way stronger than you would think, its made to sound brittle but in reality offroad will be ok.
I watched a youtube video once when somebody had a damaged carbon frame so they tried to break it in half. They threw it off roofs, threw it 20 foot in the air. Even threw bricks at it (not stupid sized ones which would obviously break it) and survived most of it without damage apart from chips.
I’ve posted this video before, but seems like a good time to share it again….
Obviously engineering and construction plays a massive role in carbon’s durability, but overall, you should not worry in the sleigh test about riding a carbon frame on gravel.
A bit of a tangent from frames but carbon nonetheless. Here’s Danny MacAskill trying to kill a carbon wheel with, first a flat, and then just no tire at all.
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