>>1729349I know jack shit about designing bikes, but I'd probably choose a more elastic material for that, like S-glass or E-glass. Or maybe an aramid - e-glass hybrid so you have a good mixture of properties (aramid has great fatigue properties, but doesn't have great compressive strength so would work well with e-glass in a matrix). That would be heavier though, but, still much lighter than metal. If the frame did break, the aramid fibers (one brand is Kevlar, which you might be familiar with) has a fibular failure mode so it won't be as catastrophic and that might also save the rider. It would likely hold on until the rider was able to stop.
That said, nice thing about composites is you can have laminate schedules (materials used) that vary by area, so maybe the carbon bikes have less stiffness in certain sections to help with ride quality, versus you can't really do that with a monolithic substrate like aluminum. On the surface level though, without knowing more about bikes, I kinda doubt carbon is all that better than a well designed aluminum frame in terms of absorption of vibrations and such.
As far as carbon breaking, I mean anytime you run something on the edge for peak performance there is a chance of failures and with the money in these things I imagine there are some pretty smart people designing them, a lot of what I just said someone probably looked into.
