Might want to look in the other forum called "Framebuilders" for discussion of steel vs aluminum vs carbon. I think the guist of that is that steel has gotten dramatically stronger and lighter over the last 10 years or so which allows a bike to be build of steel and still not be significantly heavier than the other materials.
Also might want to visit
Rodriguez's site as he specializes (amongst other things) in really getting bikes right for ladies and his site has a lot of data and discussion on topics related to those issue.