Originally Posted by cyclintom

I tried to keep up with all of the latest fads. I ended up with top end carbon bikes and to tell you the truth most of them rode like garbage. I am not a pro-racer and I'm not going fast enough to smooth the bumps out with speed. Then they started making carbon bikes for people who just tide. These carbon bikes are pretty light but to tell you the truth my bike and body weigh a little over 210 lbs. and changing this weight by a couple of percent as a normal sports rider doesn't make a detectable difference in climbing or riding on the flats.

So it began narrowing down to whether it was worthwhile to pay a small fortune to have a new or even newish bike.

I began riding more and more aluminum bikes and while they rode OK, I didn't like the cables ringing like a bell when they slapped against the headtube on the terrible roads around here. So now I will be turning back to steel bikes. Tomasso, Tomassini, Masi and other really nice bikes using modern groups and such can end up almost as light as a top end carbon racing bike,. Certainly as good as my Colnago C50 which I keep around for old times sake.

At 77 I neither climb fast enough nor have the guts to descend fast enough to make aerodynamic drag even worth mention. So shouldn't ai ride a nice comfortable bike that doesn't put my bank account in the red?