Originally Posted by rekmeyata

When I bought my titanium lynskey, my thought for doing so was comfort, not speed, I had fresh lower back fusion so I was trying to take some of the harshness out of riding. I test rode a lot of bikes, including 2 titanium bikes that friends of mine had, one had a Motobecane (which at the time was a tremendous deal), and the other was a Serotta with the S stays, I have a few steel bikes so I knew what I was comparing, the steel is real mantra vs titanium, which was going to be more comfortable. Both TI bikes were more comfortable than any of my steel bikes, except for my old touring bike, but it had wider 38c tires, and the frame has a longer wheelbase, but even that frame rode harsher with no load than a TI bike, however once loaded the bike rode like a Cadillac, better than the TI even. I rode their bikes for a year on and off, waiting for Motobecane to bring the their TI bikes back in stock, that didn't happen in a timely fashion, so while I was waiting Lynskey had a big close out sale on their Peloton model, and the price was about the same as the Motobecane except the Moto came with DA, mine came with 105, but I decided to snag the Lynskey instead of the Moto.

A TI bike looks like a cheap nude aluminum bike, so nothing flashy, and mine has low end wheels which are durable as heck, only a true bicycling hobbyist will know what it is. The Peloton is a tiny bit noodly when I push it as hard as I can, which doesn't bother me because I don't race, but lower end TI isn't going to be a racing bike type of stiffness. Look, Sean Kelly won the TDF on by far the most noodly bike I have ever ridden, a Vitus 992 small diameter tubing aluminum bike with bonded aluminum lugs, so don't be concerned about the flex in TI frames, that flex is what makes them comfortable. I ride a tall bike, probably if it was a small or medium I wouldn't even notice it on the Lynskey, plus the Peloton is more of a sport geometry not a racing geometry so that adds a bit to it as well. Some of that small degree of flexing could be due to the cheaper low spoke count wheels, but they take surface streets without ever needing a trueing. By the way, the Peloton has significantly less flex than a Peugeot PX10 professional I test rode years back in the mid 70s, or my first racing bike a 1976 Trek TX900 though that one had less flex than the PX10, and the Peloton has a bit less flex than the Serotta I tested, about equal to the Motobecane, but in all fairness the Serotta bike was built for comfort not racing, those S rear stays does that very well but the flexing is more noticeable.

Comfort does bring some compromises to the show, but nothing glaring, except on very long rides is where the comfort factor of TI will shine like a bright star, and you'll be glad you made the investment. If you don't ride very far then don't bother wasting money on a TI bike but once you start doing 40 mile plus rides, which you do, you come to love TI. Keep in mind, that the lower end TI bikes will be more comfortable because they are not built with that racing stiffness in mind, so that will save you some serious dough avoiding the higher end racing models. Also look at the geometry of a given bike, a gravel TI bike will be more comfortable to ride than a TI road race frame, not only due to the geometry being very similar to the old school sport geometry, but the wider tires as well which means you can run on lower PSI and doing so absorbs more shock.

You can make your current bike more comfortable without spending big bucks on a TI bike, the cheapest way is to go with the widest tire that will fit your bike, plus go another step and get a set of Rene Herse tires, those ride extremely well, sort of expensive but it is what it is; and if you want to take it another step add in a pair of latex tubes, but those are fragile so you need to be very good at installing tubes. Another thing you can do is go to RedShift Sports and buy the Shockstop system which involves a shock absorbing seatpost and stem. This product works very well, I have it on my touring bike and it helps immensely at keeping me more comfortable riding every day on a loaded bike, it does add some weight but for me it was worth the extra weight. That system is adjustable, so you can tailor it for you, my seat came supposedly adjusted to my weight but I found it too bouncy, so I tightened up the knob and now it's good. It does take a bit of getting use to riding with the Shockstop stuff, but eventually you forget it's there other than you know it's working.