True enough. Some material (like steel) is elastic enough that it will bend and stretch a bit before cracking and ultimately failing. But I suppose that is just the cracking process manifested in a different way.

What I meant to convey is that aluminum, not being very elastic, will crack faster and fail quicker when it reaches it's fatigue point. You might "feel" a steel bike ride differently before failure - an aluminum one will probably just crack and ulimately fail without noticeable warning.

In any case, I side with you - the fear factor is oftimes overstated. I would have no problen riding an aluminum bike, aside from ride characteristic issues (personal taste). To me, the older ones tend to ride harsher than I like (in general), but I've ridden some really nice newer ones. I'm particularly fond of the Klein Reve' (not sure if it is in production any more, but I loved the way the 2005 one I rode handled).

Likewise, the danger hype for CF bikes is pretty much nonsense. CF is very, very strong, and there are A LOT of the old Trek glued ones running about. If you're stressing CF to failure, you're probably crashing at high speed and have other fish to fry......