Originally Posted by
Bandera
It's an open ended comparison since I didn't note any specific budget from the OP just bogusness from the "local riders/LBS" who don't sell quality lightweight steel frames and incorrectly dismiss them as "too noodly for a rider of my size/strength". "Noodly" (I'm guessing at whatever that technical term means) is not a characteristic of a well designed & manufactured steel frameset. Waterford being an example or a $700 Soma Stanyan frameset at a modest price.
Is a $6,000 Pinarello Dogma 2 frameset a better comparison to a custom $2,500 Waterford?
Well designed CF or Alum framesets will be lighter than steel and can be just as "noodly", "punishing", "vertically compliant", "plane-ing" or whatever the marketing speak of the day requires designers, engineers and manufacturers to produce.
I'm not an apologist for steel, although I own several (and Alumium & CF) but sheer utter nonsense needs to be called out as such and myths eliminated from serious discourse.
-Bandera
A Waterford isn't a bike that you'll find in an LBS that "sell[s] modern lightweight steel road bikes". Nor is it a bike that you are likely to find many people in any given area that have experience with. Riders in his area (or any area) are much more likely to run across some old 80's bike that was noodly and not all that light weight. There's about a million of each one of those to every Waterford you'll run across.
For that matter, you aren't likely to run across a shop that sells Soma or Salsa or Velo Orange bikes.
If you are lucky, you might find a shop that carries Jamis or Surly but neither are offering that what I would call a "lightweight" steel bike...certainly not on par with something like a Waterford or Rodriquez.
And, just like the other major manufacturers, Jamis only offers a few steel bikes while the rest of the line is aluminum and carbon.