All these carbon bikes are sweet for sure but at the same time I don't quite see the huge advances in design that everyone else seems to see. That goes for all these carbon frames and parts as well. We hear about these prototype carbon bikes for months and when they come out all they are is a copy of the aluminum design just made out of carbon. After all that R&D all it ends up being is the same bike or parts just made out of a different material. Now I'm not downplaying the benefits and performance, but like I said it the same bike just made out of carbon. There doesn't seem to be any groundbreaking designs here, just the same good designs made out of what seems to be a higher end material.

the reason, that the carbon bikes often look like the aluminum versions, is that they already figured out a design, thats working pretty good, so why change it? But there are differences, for example if you compere the old Santa Cruz V10 to the carbon version, it gets pretty clear, that the general shape maybe the same, but the shape of the tubes changed a lot! That's what they mean with advantages in design! And it's not only the tubes, you can design the connection between the tubes to be way more fluently (look at the carbon demo vs the aluminum one)!

I agree with everything you are saying and I think you made the same general point as me actually when you said the design was already working well, so why change it. And I agree with that and that was kind of my point really. That these carbon bikes aren't really breaking a ton or new ground in terms of design and technology as some people make them out to be. They simply just found a better material to make the bikes out of it would seem. The use of Carbon isn't opening up any radical new designs or anything (yet anyway).

They may look the same, but the research is in the layup and the mould itself. I agree though. Just making a carbon version of an alloy frame isn't realy utilising the material. If you want to see something different using carbon check out tramontane cycles.

Thats pretty much what I meant. I realize there was alot of research into just how to make bikes out of Carbon, but it hasn't yet spawned any real now bike technology. What I mean is like some new radical design that was never possible due to the limitations of aluminum. Like some sort of linkage that may have worked great but was too heavy in aluminum or something of that nature. Like what kind of new design ideas will be opened up due to this new material. Like i said in my original post these new carbon bikes are cool, but for now they are just carbon versions of the old aluminum designs.

perfectly executed finish design...so effing sweet looking just sitting there. somebody at the D is killing it!!

Nice mystery in the background.

Bixi frames... http://www.snapme.ca/files/story_images/bixi2.jpg

Commuter bikes??

Ya, maybe bike share bikes. They look beefier than their DH bike though!