John Wood wrote.
If anything, you could make the argument that older bikes (30's through the 90's) are more comfortable and safer, in that new hyper-specialized race bikes don't handle rough pavement as well, and the new superlight carbon fiber frames and parts are more likely to fail catastrophically.
Tom Dalton wrote,
One could make that argument, but I'm not sure that one would use for actual facts to form the basis of that argument. I don't know of any soild data that indicates that newer "superlight" carbon parts fail more frequently than older racing parts.
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I don't know of any 'solid' data for what you say, but I do carry two anecdotes (one personal) about carbon bikes. The first anecdote, is that after adjusting the height of my saddle 3 times to let my friend ride my TREK 2300, and to set it back to heigh for myself, the seat lug split, RUINING THE FRAMESET. That's simply pathetic and unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned. And, it caused me to return to vintage steel, forever, as far as I'm concerned !!
The second anecdote comes from Jim Ogden, a fellow rider on the San Diego vintage ride. He met a guy on the street with chopped liver for a shoulder, dragging his bike home. The guy's carbon handlebars had failed, causing him to go down hard on his shoulder. The guy said, and I quote, "I don't know if I want to be a bicyclist any more. This is the second time my handlebars have failed in 6 months ..."
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So again, there may no _hard data_ to support the thought that some of the newer stuff is still too experimental to be trusted. But, if you talk to some people on the CR list, I think there is some suspicious anecdotal information in that subject area ...
Bike weight, with an equivalent margin of safety, has probably dropped only 2 lbs since the 1970's. If you rode a 21 lbs bike in the 1970's, go ahead and pay $1500 for a 19 lbs bike today. If you want something lighter, imho, you are taking large risks with your health and life, imho.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA