Originally Posted by canklecat

Good write up. I enjoyed it.

Pretty much mirrors my experiences with older and newer bikes. Like 'em both. Both have quirks and advantages. If I had to choose only one I'd probably stick with the steel bike and downtube shifters, but that's only because it's what I started with umpteen years ago and it's familiar.

And I do get comments on my steel bike, although it's just a Centurion Ironman, the Everyman of affordable road bikes. In most group rides at least one person will chatter about the Ironman they started with years ago. Maybe the distribution network was more extensive here in the 1980s.

The '93 Trek 5900, meh. Nobody comments on it. Great, functional early-ish carbon bike, lightweight and fun to ride, feels pretty much like riding a lighter weight version of a diamond frame steel bike. But cosmetically it's in that nether region era before carbon bikes were designed without slavish adherence to old school standards. Those 1990s carbon bikes just looked like diamond frame steel bikes with odd looking fat tubes. I'm not even sure it's a monocoque, I think it may just be cosmetically designed to resemble one over conventionally joined tubes.

Some newer carbon bikes are works of art in their own right. None that I can afford.