Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
I think it is correct. This is the reason that people who tour on bicycle chose steel because it's the only material that even a person with a simple welder can repair, be it anywhere in the world, you won't see that happening with any other frame material, especially CF or TI. Even in the US you still have to send the CF somewhere for the repair, whereas a local person could fix a steel bike.
You're just going to have a random welder in Timbuktu repair a high end steel alloy tube? It might hold until you get home, sure. Is it going to be anything close to the original? No. It's going to be about as close as buying some CF, epoxy and sandpaper on Amazon and repairing your CF bike yourself (which would, again, probably get you home, too), and the material properties of the bike will be compromised. If you went with simple and cheap steel tubing then you don't lose much having some random welder fix it, but this tubing is far far more likely to crack due to fatigue than CF or high end steel is.
People tour on steel because the touring scene is largely retrogrouch heaven. The internet tour-o-sphere swears by leather tensioned saddles from the end of the 19th century as the pinnacle of comfort on a bike. The wheels need to have 12321314773213 spokes (ok, slight hyperbole) because that's what needed to be done in 1980 when time had stopped.