Originally Posted by
Inpd
I gotta love the steel bike owners. Ran into a few vintage owners on my trail and had a long chat. Super nice guys who $all$ asked if I wanted to ride their bikes. When was the last time that happened to you? But I explained I wasn't in the market for vintage steel so they promptly pull over a guy who was riding a soma Smoothie and explained the situation. He let me ride his bike!
It was a beautiful looking bike and the better groupo could be felt. But I didn't get the amazing feeling I was expecting. The bike handled differently than mine, but that's because of the different geometry right, not the steel frame. The bike felt a tiny bit smoother but this trail is quite smooth and it's what I ride all,the time. It felt about the same stiffness as my Alu frame, but perhaps that's because I only average about 16mph so I don't try it enough?
I have a Smoothie built up with 5800 and it's a great ride for the money. Don't discount vintage. Not much has changed in frames and you can always modernize if you want. Some older bikes have 1" headset so you might need adapters if you want modern bars and stems. Some have 126 mm drop outs but steel can easily be made to accept 130 mm wheels. But if you really want something different, a nice vintage steel with downtube shifters would fit the bill. You also can usually find good deals on old Lemonds for example which usually are Reynolds 853 and the later years were modern with 130mm drop outs and threadless headset