Originally Posted by
tjspiel
In the last 4 years I've taken 6 different bikes to work. 3 steel road bikes, 1 aluminum/carbon road bike and 2 rigid framed steel MTBs from the 90's.
The smoothest riding road bike is a steel Univega with a touring geometry. It has really long chain stays. The worst riding road bike? Also steel. The MTBs are a different animal except that one is a Bianchi that takes 700c wheels. This has allowed me to do some mixing and matching of tires and wheels between the Bianchi MTB and my current road bike which I did just for fun. The Bianchi has also undergone a drop bar conversion. So for about $200 total, I've gotten a nice double-butted cromoly framed bike not all that different from a Crosscheck in terms of it's versatility. It can take even wider tires than a Crosscheck.
Anyway with the same wheels and tires, I can't honestly say which gives the better ride, the steel Bianchi, or the aluminum/carbon Specialized.
So while I think it's great that the OP has found a bike/route combination that makes his commute more pleasant, I'd be careful about attributing that to frame material. In my experience, tires and geometry have made more of a difference.
+1...between different tires, different saddles, different seatposts and different geometry it's hard to tell what you're feeling. I've had steel bikes that rode like garbage (including some high end stuff) and steel bikes that I love. My favorite bike over all is my titanium with carbon fork, but I'm convinced that's as much geometry as anything else.
Different bikes are also better for some tasks than others. My steel Surly Karate Monkey is a god awful frame for commuting with on reasonable tires, but everyone says it's great with thicker knobbies. I rode a Miyata 1000, a bike most rave about, and thought it was among the worst riding bikes I've felt...and then I rode an LHT, which was even worse. You couldn't pay me to ride an unloaded LHT, it felt like the old department store stuff. BUT...they're apprently great fully loaded. My aluminum frame/CF fork Kona had a great ride and feel...not like any aluminum I've had before.
I assure you that my De Rosa feels like a sports car, not a cadillac.