Originally Posted by
mtnbke
Its all about snob appeal, some need to validate oneself as more sophisticated, learned, or enlightened. The best thing is that the personality types that scoff at titanium, carbon, and aluminum are also the same types that have to validate themselves as cyclists on every group ride. In this, there is some sense of delicious justice. Their bikes are horrendously inefficient, are boat anchors, and they have to put out significantly more wattage to just keep pace with the titanium, carbon, and even the garage sale Cannondale crowd.
What a crock of ....! Let me guess, you're an English lit prof at UofW. Well, I'm a retired structural engineer, and I've got news for you buddy. There ain't a whole lot of difference between the various metal alloys that can be formed into tubing shapes and used to fabricate bicycle frames. They are all linear, elastic, isotropic materials that have comparable ratios of young's modulus to unit weight, which in lay terms simply means that they can all be used to make frames with similar properties. My choices of frame materials have always been based on pragmatic considerations of cost and availability, and I don't associate with people that worship inanimate objects or see their own worth in terms of their possessions. I don't "scoff" at materials any more than I might howl at the moon.