What are the disadvantages to a carbon frame?

[OakLeaf]

Potentially slightly more relevant to this discussion is Ducati's failed experiment with a carbon fiber frame. The bike was famously too stiff and wouldn't steer. They've gone back to aluminum for 2015, but are keeping the carbon fiber swingarm.

The carbon is also structural in the cars. They can get away with it because of the much, much, much larger tire contact patches.

[ny biker]

You mean that tires contact the road in a much greater surface area than a bicycle tire?

Actually,...English, please?

There's a good picture of the cars here.

http://www.formula1.com/content/fom-...ed-podium.html

I think there must be something more solid in the part above/behind the driver's heads, which is there for safety reasons. I've seen the driver walk away unhurt after his car flipped upside down and then bounce rightside up again. Whatever is in there, the car did not break apart from the impacts.

Anyway, as I said before, they have different requirements and budgets in mind when they make the carbon for these cars vs. mass-produced bike frames. I can't find the link to it, but I recall BikesnobNYC writing about his carbon road bike cracking pretty easily, from hitting against a lamppost or something similar.

[Eden]

I stand corrected - I was looking at an old F1 car frame that was aluminum. It does appear that current cars have a carbon monocoque chassis/cockpit. They are specially coated so that they will not splinter in case of an impact, something which obviously bikes don't have, but I would guess flying carbon bits aren't going to be a huge problem in bike crashes either.

I don't know about bike snobs bike… that sounds unusual of not improbably, but the carbon part I have seen break without provocation was carbon spoke wheels.. which had a bad habit of simply shredding themselves

[OakLeaf]

You mean that tires contact the road in a much greater surface area than a bicycle tire?

Actually,...English, please?

Yep. A car has so much more grip (than bici or moto), and it doesn't steer by leaning, so having a certain amount of controlled frame flex isn't critical to handling in a car the way it is with a two-wheeled vehicle.