if carbon fiber is so strong then why dont they make carbonfiber unicycles?
titanium would be better, but expensive I imagine. 
Or perhaps a better reply would be “They who?” Carbon fiber bikes are only owned by a tiny percentage of the bike population. If carbon is so great, why doesn’t everyone have it? That’s most of your question right there.
BTW I have one, like these:
Yeah, but most middle to high end road bikes have carbon forks. Hmmm… what looks similar to a fork with a seat on it?
Actually a lot more racers are riding CF. The ones that don’t it is either because of the price or they don’t like the feel of it, not based on greatness of it.
isnt carbon fiber like really exspensive?
Its pretty expensive yeah but on a road bike worth it. I have a carbon fibre and aluminium and by far the carbon fibre is the best. It absorbs bumps better and is also lighter.
A unicycle thou is put under lots of bending stress and twisting forces and carbon fibre cracks before it bends. Thats why I dont think it is used??
Titanium as said is the best material at the moment but expensive.
Yes, I think it’s because it is harder to make stuff with it. There has to be a lot of engineering put into building stuff with carbon fiber. I’m thinking this is why they don’t make unicycles out of it.
not so much for a unicycle frame.
it shouldn’t be more than $50 in carbon fiber.
that is about how much it is to do a skimboard, so i’m guessing its much cheaper than that.
EDIT: building it would defiinitely be a MAJOR pain though…
Dude carbon fiber is more rigid than aluminum and steel. Steal is softest then Aluminum then CF but aluminum is more bouncy/less absorbing then cf…I think cf unis would be no good because i throw mine down a shitload and even rubbing cf too much while its in a car can wear right though that stuff. ALU. or TI
while on the subject (sorta)
what about Graphite?
that would make a pretty awesome frame.
I think carbon fiber is the way to go, it’s an amazing material. By weight it’s much stronger and stiffer than steel aluminum and even titanium.
The reason that their are so few carbon fiber bikes is simply because they cost a lot, the demand isn’t there.
I think it would be ideal for coker and muni frames.
A plumbing pipe looks similar to a truck’s driveshaft. Switch them and you’ve got problems. What I mean is that though a bike fork is very similar, the stresses on it are very different There’s no twisting on a bike fork, so the rules for building one are very different from a strong uni frame. Doesn’t mean you can’t use carbon, but you can’t use a carbon bike for (for best results).
I was just trying to poke fun. I really have no idea of the forces on a uni frame, hopefully the frame builders know. I would think a mountain bike fork would be a better match to handle the forces, you don’t see many (any?) carbon mtb forks that’s for sure.
Looking at the footage from the Tour de France this year, I would say that the majority of the bikes there are carbon. Most of the high end bikes these days seem to be carbon orientated, or if not, partially carbon (eg seatstays/chainstays).
My mountainbike is carbon but my trusty roadbike is high-end steel. Carbon is light and strong, but after a couple of seasons it looks awful.
I have seen a carbon Muni (one of the first made belonging to Jez Weston). It’s still one of the lightest Muni’s I’ve picked up.
Roger at UDC built 30 (i think) carbon fibre munis some years ago. They retailed at £750, and they didnt even have a splined hub (wasn’t the way things were done back then). Yes it’s light, but i believe Roger always wraps it when transporting as scratches in the tubes can cause premature failure. Carbon fibre, as any material, is only great in certain types of construction. Brilliant for monocoques but in a tubular frame not so good.
Also there is a significance difference between stength, stiffness and hardness, it’s important not to mix them up.
I see no reason to make CF unicycleframes. Aluminium coker frame weights 663 grams, 36" aluminium rim weights 1170 g. So making 36" CF rim would be better idea. Even better thing would be 36" 1 inch wide high pressure tyre, it could cut the weight even 1,5 kg/3 pound and I guess the price would be something like 40-90 bucks.
I honestly don’t think it would be that good an idea, it’d just have chunks wears off everytime you scrape it. The atomic structure is tough, but allows segments to slide off easily, hence the use of graphite in pencils.
The real advantage of carbon fiber is it’s weigh. Carbon fiber is much lighter than most other materials. I assume a carbon fiber unicycle isn’t really that great an idea because a unicycle frame is already significantly smaller and lighter than a bike frame.
Another reason why unicycles are superior to bikes.
Yeah, the carbon munis Roger made are light. But mainly because he used super lightweight parts for other parts of them than the frame. For example, they run a 2" tyre, a narrow rim, a non-splined hub, a lightweight inner tube, a lightweight seatpost, a miyata seat with a carbon base, magnesium lightweight pedals. Those things make way more difference than the 200g or whatever it is saved on the frame.
Joe