Carbon flesh core tool

If you learn one thing from reading this blog, let it be this: choose the right tool for the job. For example, choose an alloy seat post with a robust clamp for mountain biking and cyclocross racing. When you choose a carbon seat post and it snaps on your remount, and you're left hovering tubing shards that threaten to eviscerate you, you'll need something good to get it out of your frame. For example, here is a fellow using a cable cutter to yank the remnants of a poor component decision out of an otherwise nice bike: (sorry about he crappy focus)

The rider who owns the bike snapped the post on his first remount of a race and twisted the now useless top section off like the stem of an apple, throwing it to the ground. He then ran to his team pit where one guy went at it hammer and tongs to get the old post out and swap an alloy post from another guy's bike. Meanwhile, his teamates and buddies taunted him with cries of "must have gone to 6 newton-meters man!" (referring to the 5 N-m torque limit on most carbon clamping bolts).

This rider now knows not to use a part that fails catastrophically in planned use. Specialized, for all the cyclocross riders they sponsor, still doesn't get it. They're still selling the Tricross with a carbon seat post that has a big gaping hole right in the middle of it filled with a gummy bear known as a 'Zertz' vibration dampening insert.