Originally Posted by
slacker_express
........
A couple of years later, I decided to buy a new bike and spend a good amount of time just riding a lot of bikes over and over again, with different materials and geometries. The last day I did this, I had three bikes that made it to the finale, an Orbea, a Felt, and a Cannondale. It then came down to Felt and Cannondale, and I really tried to convince myself that I could make the Felt (all Carbon) fit as well as the Cannondale, which just disappeared under me. In the end, I picked the Cannondale (R1000) and know I made the right decision. It may have been possible to have a fitter fit the Felt to me, but I did not want to take the chance. I've comfortably ridden centuries on the Cannondale with only minor tweaks.
now that's a good way of putting it. Its a weird thing really, though, like whether a saddle works for you. A bunch of different ones might feel ok, but you know you're good when you can ride for a week and realize you haven't thought about the saddle the whole time.
I've got a Scattante that works pretty good for me, but I'd be happier with a stiffer bike. Though my last road bike was a very stiff Klein with their long wheelbase, and never really responded the way I wanted - riding it was always "making the bike do stuff" instead of just doing it...anyway, its worth trying a bunch of different bikes. It helps if you're in good shape and broken in, but you'll probably know when its a good fit.