The racing frames here don't break as a rule as OP suggests, if one does there was a manufacturing flaw or a crash/impact of some kind.

A few grams of weight does not have enough impact TT bike performance enough to make it worth shaving 100 grams if it risks reliability.

What a terrible human being, why would anyone want to be involved with Y Combinator or any of their companies that would put up with this sort of behavior?

There used to be a video on youtube of a carbon mountain bike fork, and they were SMASHING it with a ball peen hammer, repeatedly. It did do a little damage but remained rideable, and was in much better shape than the metal forks they smashed.

There is also this video from Santa Cruz: https://youtu.be/w5eMMf11uhM?t=148 where they test the fork and frame

I am also remind of the Danny M video of the carbon wheels test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfjjiHGuHoc

This has no practical impact on actual bicycles though, in practice they all fail, at similar rates.

I've broken 2 Al frames, and my road bike is 19 years older than I am and still perfect. I might just be being irrationally sensitive to it but hey, no hate on any bikes, bikes are the best an I love em all.

"There is no speed benefit for a non professional on a carbon frame"

Yes there is, I and many people have directly measured it.

Carbon fiber bikes have two main properties that can affect performance:

1. they are a little lighter. This doesn't matter nearly as much as most cyclists think, but it does matter a bit. If you race competitively in the mountains, you might care.

2. There is more design freedom for shaping them aerodynamically. This makes a bit more difference than weight, and if you are competing you definitely want it.

> doesn't matter nearly as much as most cyclists think

Weight matters also off-bike. For example if you need to carry it upstairs daily. So it can matter even for people that do not race.

Even just loading a bike onto a car rack is a pretty big difference. I don't think I'd pay for carbon if the only benefit was it being easier to carry, but it is a pretty big benefit.

I used to live in a 3rd floor walk up in NYC. I appreciated my carbon bike. I even considered buying carbon wheels.

they can also be stiffer in some directions and more flexible in others, which is a huge underestimated advantage compared to metal bikes.

That is a myth. Material alone doesn't determine this, and modern road bikes are on 28mm tires at ~70psi so this isn't nearly as much of an issue as it was 20 years ago (and it wasn't a real issue then either)

A myth? Your butt can tell you immediately that it is not a myth. All other things being equal, a steel frame will feel less harsh than an aluminum or carbon bike.

This is a misconception. Carbon fiber mountain bikes are not more delicate. Designed properly they are more durable. The idea that carbon fiber is innately delicate comes from road bikes designed to be as light and stiff as possible, and they can end up brittle, and weak in areas that don't normally see stresses. Not all road bikes are designed like this, even high end ones, but some early ultra light bikes were.

Bikes that need to be durable use different types of fibers that can bend more before cracking, and may include layers of kevlar or other composites with more 'toughness' in key areas. My wife has a carbon fiber mountain bike and has been racing every weekend, winning, jumping, crashing, riding every day, for 3 years now, bike is fine.

Don't forget that you can only extract about 30-35% of that energy via combustion, though. Whereas a battery with an electric motor you get more like 90%

Another knock against gasoline is that you spend about 1 EV battery pack of energy to refine a cars tank of gasoline from crude oil in the first place.

Just the anti-musk blog ecosystem is largely noise, this particular post looks pretty good though and mostly rings true to me.

That's because it's omitting inconvenient facts, like zero mention of interest rates becoming sky high as one of the reasons for the slowdown.