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On the whole carbon debate, I am now a PhD student in engineering materials so know a bit about composites. I'd say the jury is still out somewhat on carbon. Aircraft manufacturers, traditionally one of the most ultra-conservative industries with regards to new materials and processes, have started getting confident in use of carbon for airframes on a radical scale (wings and fuselages as opposed to just spars and exterior panels). It could be argued 'if it's good enough for them...' and that would be a fair point, though having said that this is very, very high grade stuff. Carbon is sensitive to manufacturing defects, and also to accident damage. This damage is often invisible as carbon tends to fail more catastrophically in layers under the surface at an impact point, meaning only a scan will reveal the full extent of damage that may look minor or even invisible to the eye/touch. Damage will allow a route for water ingress and subsequent delamination. With good coatings, there is no reason why water ingress should be a particular problem, but the generally rapid failure of carbon as opposed to steel would worry me. You might have some delamination and cracking at the crown of your forks, and not see it, then a pothole could just cause them to crack off. Personally since I don't race, I'd prefer a material which fails in a more predictable and slow way, and which often bends under impact rather than simply snaps. The point made previously about having to check any frame regularly is completely sound. I don't ride aluminium because I've seen plenty of examples of slow fatigue leading to sudden catastrophic failure in many engineering applications involving cyclical loading. I have no reason to believe that with good materials engineering and over-design, this would be likely to happen, but then maybe I'm ultra-conservative when it comes to safety too. People who ride big steel bikes still get hit by buses, so it's all swings and roundabouts I suppose.