Road Cycling - choosing a new road bike

Hi, I am finally buying a new road bike - I have been riding a Wheeler steel frame for the past 9 years. We have 2 LBS that I like alot - One shop carries Cannondale, Trek and are closing out their stock of Specialized. They have a 52 cm Specialized Allez Pro that they will sell me for $2100 (reg $2700). It is an alum frame with carbon seatpost and fork with durace components and is superlight. The other LBS has Giant, Felt, Orbea and Lightspeed. They will sell me last year's Lightspeed Arenberg 51 for $2000 (reg $2600). It is a titanium frame with Ultegra components. It is pretty hilly where I live and I ride 2-3x a week with longest rides of 30-50 miles. I am 5'5" and weight 120#. I will probably ride this bike forever and want to make a good decision, so any help would be great. Thanks

Well, fit is the most important. I suggest that you test ride both to see which one feels the best for you. Being 5'5", the 51 cm (c-t)Litespeed might fit you better. I'm 5'8" and I ride 50 cm (c-c) bicycles. Make sure that the LBS that you are dealing with will swap a different sized stem or crankset if necessary. Dura Ace rocks but i doubt you'll really notice much of a difference with Ultegra. Dura Ace would probably last a bit longer. Hands down, though, ti beats aluminum any day. Ti has a very sweet ride, will outlast any aluminum bike - actually it will probably outlast all of the bike parts on it. Ti also is tough as nails. You won't have to baby Ti as you may have to with thin-walled aluminum frames. Most Litespeed Ti bikes comes unpainted, which is good, since there is no paint to chip. The brushed finish on those Ti bikes makes it easy to repair small scratches. Only disadvantage with Ti - it may be heavier than aluminum, but not by much - probably a 1/4 of a pound difference at the most.
Give it a ride, you'll see. Good luck with the decision.

The Arenberg price is very competitive and the name has a cachet that Allez
does not. If you haven't been following Litespeed over the past five yrs, their prices have been going up 10-15%/yr. Vortex I got in '00 (Ultegra) for 3k is
now 5k+ equipped (Ultegra). Very few sold with Ultegra though in that price
range. Component set cost differences evaporate in the 5-6k range. Steve

I would say go with the Arenberg. The titanium is a MUCH nicer ride than Aluminum. And at 2K, thats an amazing deal, as my shop sells it for 2900. The largest difference between Ultegra and DA is mainly the weight and shifters. But other than that, they perform about equally.

Both are very nice. Litespeed has the name advantage. Ride them both, and see which is more comfy to you. If I had $2000.00 to play with, it would take me a year to decide. There are a ton of choices with that much to work with. :)

I'd take the Litespeed hands down (as long as it fit properly). I was looking at steel and got a deal on a leftover LeMond Victoire Ti for $2000. Doing about 125 miles a week for the last 3 weeks and absolutely love the Ti.

:) Thanks for all of the input...I'll try out the Litespeed tomorrow!