My first carbon bike lasted about 7 months. When I crashed, the guy behind me ran into me, and I think it was his pedal that gouged into my downtube, causing a noticeable amount of damage to a very small area, about a quarter in size. There was a big scratch which was cosmetic, but you could see the carbon in the area had changed color from very dark grey to off-white, as if something had delaminated or something. It was crash replaced, and I payed the difference and got the frame model up. If I was not run into after crashing, the frame would have been fine.
I paid a percent of the value of the frame; don't know exactly how much as I don't know the value of the frame separate of the whole bike, guessing about 20~30%. So I still had to come up with a fair chunk of change for the new frame; the labor to move my parts over, new shifters and a new saddle. It was just a freak thing- survive the crash only to get skewered by another rider.
Tzvia- rollin' slow...
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