“OK, except that I can’t seem to keep a bike in one piece,” he replied.

I raised an eyebrow. Not a typical response from a roadie.

“I’ve gone through three carbon frames in just a few weeks. Cracked one, broke the fork on another, and the third one, well …” He averted his eyes.

“Well, what?” I pried.

“It sort of got away from me while I was taking it down from the bike rack on top of my car. It landed on my head and …”

I was already laughing. “How hard is your head?”

Paul smiled sheepishly. “Hard enough to sever a carbon fiber frame.”

I walked away in disbelief. Cycling conundrums always happen in three’s, so I was certain his bad luck was over, at least for the pre-season.

But it got me thinking, is all carbon fiber created equal?

Last fall, I had an opportunity to visit the authority on carbon fiber, 76-year-old Ernesto Colnago, at his world headquarters in Cambriago, Italy, on assignment for VeloNews. Colnago envisioned the first carbon fiber bicycle in 1986, after a meeting with Enzo Ferrari. The subsequent relationship between the king of race cars and the king of race bikes would forever change the anatomy of the bicycle.

During the interview, Colnago contended that all carbon fiber was most definitely not created equal. But don’t you sort of expect him to say that? He’s in the business of producing high-end carbon fiber racing machines. It’s in his best interest to say that his carbon fiber is better than all the rest.

At the time, I remained skeptical. Mr. Colnago worked himself up into a good-natured rage over my doubt, scrambling around his office with the energy of a much younger man. Located deep in a desk drawer, he pulled out a pair of carbon fiber head tubes, both severed in half. He remained standing as he placed them on the desk for my inspection. Both pieces appeared identical until he turned them over so I could see inside. The Colnago version, with its sleek, uniformly woven fibers in shades of black and grey, looked like a piece of art. The competitor’s head tube, a disjointed mess of fibers lacquered with resin, called to mind a junkyard scrap pile.

Colnago’s point? All carbon fiber looks the same from the outside, but varies significantly on the inside. Carbon fiber’s allure is that it’s lighter compared to other materials like steel, but just as durable. Now consider that consumers will never see the inside of their bike frame. Isn’t it then possible for manufacturers to sacrifice durability for cost, allowing just about anything to pass as carbon fiber?

So how do you know if you’re getting a frame you could crack over your head or not?

Carbon fiber bikes are made by reinforcing a polymer (like epoxy) with layers of interwoven carbon fiber sheets. The carbon fibers themselves can vary in quality, as can the choice of weave, in addition to the method for constructing the frame.

Alas, technical carbon fiber details aren’t readily available for most bikes. Fortunately, the old adage “you get what you pay for” still applies. High quality carbon fiber that balances strength and weight is expensive. Be wary of manufacturers with significantly cheaper carbon fiber frames. They have to be cutting corners somewhere.

However, the information that is more readily available is the construction method. Monocoque construction is a newer technology, and is superior to gluing or bonding tubes together. A monocoque frame is one piece without joints or conjunctions that can be inherently weak areas. You can tell if a frame is monocoque just by eyeballing it. If tubes flow into one another as one piece, it’s monocoque. Pinarello and Colnago bikes both employ this construction technique on all frame models. If you can see where the tubes connect, it’s not monocoque.

I got an email from Paul a few days ago. Coincidentally, he’d purchased a new Colnago frame. “It’s a lot more expensive,” he wrote, “but not as expensive as three cheaper frames.” Time will tell if the Colnago lives up to its claims. But I told Paul that I knew exactly what his frame looked like on the inside. And it sure was pretty.