>>1292530All bikes are garbage once they are damaged enough, so what's you point? You can salvage a fucked carbon frame? How is a bent aluminium frame any less fucked than a steel one?
The failure mode of steel is safer than alluminium and carbon simply because it's region of permanent deformation is longer. It bends more before giving way completely. While many composite materials like carbon behave with high rigidity right up to the point of failure were they burst into smithereens with little warning (if you're lucky you might catch some hairline cracks upon close inspection). Their overall mechanical properties are superior to steel but their failure mode (how the material behaves when it breaks) is much less safer than steel. A carbon fork is overall stronger and lighter than a steel one (and I'm told they ride quite nice) but in case of a crash or failure a steel one will behave more favorably and will absorb more energy before breaking. That is all I'm not expressing a preference for one or the other. Steel is in fact safer than aluminium and carbon, it's not a meme.
