Pre-newbie looking for guidance!

[Trek420]

$0.50 tour & over generalization of bike frames:

Steel - buttery smooth ride, inexpensive, repairable! - crash it into the carport, get it fixed, beautiful, classic heavy . Don't drool on mine, it'll rust.


Aluminum- fast, light, zippy, stiff, CHEAP, stiff responsive sprinting machine . you'll feel every candy bar wrapper you go over .

Carbon - fast, light, zippy, stiff take out a 2nd mortgage expensive, has less "road feel", feels dead

Ti - buttery smooth steel-like ride, light, fast , sell your soul on e-Bay EXPENSIVE, some find it "noodly", not stiff enough for sprinters or climbing .

Now, enter the designer!!! And the builder and your LBS!

With the right combination Ti can be stiff, zippy, with the buttery steel-like ride, carbon can have great road feel and still be a racing machine (but they are still both expensive-sorry, nothing changes that), aluminum can be comfortable and still zippy yet inexpensive and steel .... now, nothing rides like steel and steel can be light.

Now, get out there and find your LBS (that's local bike shop) and try bikes, try bikes, try bikes! What are you doing reading this? We're living through you, all the thrill of hunting for the right bike but with your money

Get out there and we want to hear the ride reports.

*disclosure, I have 3 bikes and counting, all steel ranging from a free-project bike, a 25 year old commuter, to Italian full-custom dream machine. Yeah, I like steel too but they are all great bikes!