Yes, there a hundreds of threads on these topics. But, in the "real" world, most customers don't have a lot of choices. Today, the $200 to $900 bike market (which are the majority of bikes sold, not counting the pretend bikes sold by the Wal-Mart type of stores) is almost 100% aluminum frames.

If you are looking at road bikes, in the $700 and up market (which is 90% of the market) all of the bikes are sold with carbon forks. Again, no choice for consumers.

To have real choices of equally high quality frames and forks made from steel, titanium, carbon, and aluminum, a customer generally needs to speed $2,000, $3,000, or more. Those lucky folks spending $2,000 to $10,000 on bikes have choices, but "Joe Average" does not.

No "expert" does a better job of advocating for steel frames and steel forks than Grant Peterson, of Rivendell bikes. He can give a dozen good reasons that steel is the best material for a bike frame and a bike fork. BUT, Grant does not claim that a rider will "feel" those advantages out on the road.

Grant thinks that the "feel" of a bike is the product of its geometry, the length of the chainstays, the length of the wheelbase, the size and width of the tires, the PSI of the tires, the bars, the bar wrap, the saddle....a dozen other factors have more impact on the "feel" of a bike than does the material used for the frame and fork.

My own experience is that my steel frame and steel fork road bikes do a much better job of soaking up road shock that does my carbon frame and fork bike, or the aluminum frame and fork bikes I've owned. But, if Grant is correct, that "superior" ride is not the result of the steel...