Quote Originally Posted by warneral View Post
I ended up finding a used trek 1000 which is aluminum with carbon fiber fork. Tiagra/sora components. The brakes didn't work well, the shifters would drop my chain, and it didn't fit vvery well. I've since invested more $ into fixing the brakes (it really just needed new pads) and changing the stem for better fit. But with only a few hundred miles under my belt this summer I saw the bike of my dreams. Steel with carbon fork and campy chorus components, campy proton wheels. DH eventually agreed to the (extravagant) purchase and I LOVE this bike! I wish I had more time in the riding season and all I think about is bicycling
I agree that components are also important. I had mostly 105 on my old bike with some Tiagra, including a horrible Tiagra front derailleur that needed frequent adjusting. Eventually it broke from being adjusted so often and was replaced with an Ultegra, which worked so much better.

If had to choose between a carbon frame with low quality components and an aluminum frame with better components, I would go with the latter (assuming fit was equally good with either choice).

The $2000 Trek Madone I mentioned earlier comes with Shimano 105, I think, which would be my minimum for Shimano. As it turns out, the bike I bought has SRAM Rival, which I'm quite happy with.