[lmm]

And you'd what, stash a second box at the office? Always have a support car? Only do circular rides from home?

I'm sure there are some people whose lifestyle lets them treat a bicycle like a musical instrument. I really don't think most people could do it, not while riding with any real frequency. I count myself lucky that my office has underground bicycle parking (and we're still talking wheel-bender racks next to the A/C exhaust vents). I stand by the statement that a bicycle that needs to be looked after that carefully isn't, by the usual standards of such things, a practical bicycle.

[Lio]

Of course I don't keep a second box at the office. Likewise I know very few people that keep a piano in a flight case when they're not transporting it.

I actually do have bikes that I only take on circular rides because of their value and I baby the hell out of them but that's a false dichotomy.

They are not saying you have to treat these bikes as fragile musical instruments. They're just saying that if you do it will incur less wear and tear.

A carbon fibre bike frame is probably more fragile than a steel one. That limits the number of use cases for carbon but doesn't mean it's not a practical material for different usecases.

As a further example, I have a TT race bike. I keep mine hanging up in the garage an only take it out to races or for circular training rides.

I have a friend that commutes on his TT bike as a form of training. Mine will last longer than his.