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Plastic
From WikiPedalia
- Plastic deformation: permanent deformation which occurs when a material is stressed beyond the yield point (the limit below which it springs back to its original shape) -- that is, becomes bent. Plastic deformation of spokes is important to relieve them of bending stress when building a wheel.
- Plastic materials: The word is defined in Wikipedia: "A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids that are moldable." Bicycle water bottles and parts of some bicycle components have long been made of plastic materials. In the 1970s and 1980s, a couple of attempts were made to market bicycles with frames of plastic materials reinforced with glass fiber, but these frames were heavy, bulky, flexible and noisy: their large surface area worked as a sounding board. More recently, the very high stiffness of carbon-fiber-reinforced epoxy materials has enabled the manufacture of very lightweight (though fragile) frames and forks. Cyclists who prefer metal frames use "plastic" as a derogatory term for carbon-fiber bicycle frames and components. Itera plastic bicycle, made ca. 1981
