Spandex kills

[tabatha]

[drmeow]

1. Can you provide a link

to the original.

[PoliticAverse]

2. You can find it here...

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201101/grapple5.aspx

[drmeow]

4. Thanks

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Friends don't let friends wear Spandex. nt

[Arctic Dave]

5. Who is riding around on carbon fiber bikes other then for competition?

Too expensive compared to aluminum or titanium.

[wtmusic]

9. Carbon is a great ride.

Yes they're relatively expensive, but light as a feather and they absorb road shock.

If you ride a lot (for me, 5,000 mi/year) they're well worth it.

[pansypoo53219]

6. ok

no fancy bike or lycra. done. no northern TP too.

[keith the dem]

7. Definitely some BS here,

Even if you ride for sport and have a carbon fiber frame, Most of us start our activity from home. Compare this to almost any other sport where you have to drive to get someplace to do it....those gallons of petrol benefit the Koch brothers far more than a pair of shorts...and few sports don't use lycra or cool-max clothes these days anyway.

The writer also has misinformation about carbon frames. Carbon fiber does not break from fatigue stress. Riding thousands of miles with many other cyclists, I have never seen a carbon frame break from simple fatigue. They will break in a severe crash however, any frame will. If you don't hit anything, the main cause of frame failure is fatigue. Aluminum has terrible fatigue strength, steel is better, but not great. I have broken 2 steel frames with classic fatigue cracks in my life. Steel frames can be repaired, but I have never heard of an aluminum frame being repaired.

Despite what you've heard, the main advantage of Carbon Fiber frames is comfort; therefore it's much more likely that a Carbon Fiber bike will be used. It's far worse to expend the energy to make a bike, and only use it as a garage decoration.

[wtmusic]

8. Biking shorts are only 13% Spandex

so we're talking about maybe 10 grams of material in a pair of shorts that will last me a year of hard riding.

And your comparison to driving highlights the error in proportion here. I have two carbon bikes I've been riding for years with nary a crack, and both frames together weigh less than 5 lbs.

Each gallon of gas burned in driving dumps 19 lbs. of CO2 into the atmosphere.

[keith the dem]

10. Yea, I've just never seen a stress (fatigue) crack on a Carbon

Frame, I've seen plenty on Aluminum and Steel.