In consumer bicycles
Having said that, the chrome moly top tube on my road bike broke without warning. Granted I did get hit by a cop car doing 80kph in a 50kph zone. Strained a thumb too.
If you want a bike to give to your grandkids when you die get Ti or some form of steel.
However, I still worry about getting my carbon hiking poles stuck in a crack, them breaking and then impaling myself on the sharp break
> If you do ride your bike enough, you're almost certainly replacing frequently enough that it will never be an issue.
True for the light athletes that take care during usage and "upgrade" often. Part of the motivation to upgrade is security.
Be more careful if you ride in urban/outdoor with potholes and like to keep using a piece a hardware when it fits your needs.
As a bike mechanist we checked meticulously every second hand frame we sell and find some cracks time to time. Those happen (CN and Aluminum). Direct to the bin.
More importantly: check your rims, especially as we entered the disk era and don’t change them so often. They also do get cracks and fail catastrophically.
I am familiar with the failure mode of bonded frame, we had a number of vitus bikes in the family and usually they just become so noodly you stop before the bond is giving up totally. To be honest I am more concerned about the fatigue of the aluminum fork legs which is the reason I recently ordered a steel fork for the next time I am riding it.
With the ubiquity of frames at the high amateur level, if there were still issues you'd hear more about them.
Re CF frames... one neglected point is that even when you do crunch them into a rock, they're repairable, whereas Al frames aren't worth repairing due to the heat treat needed. My own CF XC MTB has a repaired chainstay.
whoa