This is a quality control pass. What does a fail look like in one of these carbon fibre expensive brand bikes?
Try not to get too scared when viewing this video and these photos. Remember that these bikes have all been left in for repair because there’s something wrong with them or they’ve been scrapped because they are beyond repair.
The samples in this clip are the problematic end of carbon fibre bikes; they’re not typical.
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And as Raoul Luescher says himself, there are examples of excellent and bad work with all brands.
He runs his own company, Luescher Teknik in Australia, and it specialises in scanning carbon bikes to establish what the problem is for repair.
He also fixes up broken carbon frames for reuse.
And he’s kept a number of samples down the years that he’s cut in half to have a look inside so he can track how carbon fibre bike manufacturing is evolving.
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Some of the samples in the clip are newer than others and it shows; some of the work is less clean.
He says problems arise if the fibre is not compacted and aligned; it results in a structural fault. Whether the resin looks neat or not is not a structural issue.
“It’s like a knot in a piece of wood,” says Luescher in the feature length video interview and demonstration, below.
“The fibres and the direction of the fibres is what gives (frames) their strength.
“If you looked at a carbon bike from, say, 10 years ago; they all had cracks at the bottom bracket because they were all full of wrinkles in that area.”
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As well as the frames, he also has some carbon forks with sections cut away so we can look inside.
The main issue with forks is air trapped between the layers of carbon and wrinkles; both of which weaken forks.
The clip, just below, is self explanatory and well worth a look, as are some of his Facebook posts, also included below.
Cutting up expensive carbon, with Raoul Luescher
Humidity of Hong Kong and proximity to ocean...
Raoul says: This Trek Madone came to us from Hong Kong. Humidity and proximity to the ocean has caused some serious corrosion of the aluminum fittings. The bottom bracket shell has been half eaten away and left residue throughout the frame.
Finding a 'void' in a Willier Cento1SR
Raoul says: A void! Willier Cento1SR. This frame clearly has some production process problems.
Specialized very well put together
Raoul says: Here is a Specialized Venge bottom bracket area. This is well done with some internal ribs to support the larger flat areas, they even managed to get void-free bonded joints.
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