While I appreciate steel... the thing you may be experiencing and loving could be the frame geometry itself... a longer wheelbase will give you that "Cadillac" feel. Touring bikes tend to have that longer wheelbase as well.

I only have steel bikes and I can tell you that my daily driver with the long wheel base handles like an old truck, while the '80s criterion bike is twitchy and requires constant attention. Same materials, vastly different wheel base.

I just love the look of that bike. Very old school looking but not funky old school. Good old school with a touch of moderness. FWIW I cut about 3 minutes off my normal commute this afternoon on my Raleigh compared to my Windsor, but the ride is not nearly as comfy as the Windsor but I was hittin some pretty good speeds without a lot of extra effort. I'm riding it again tomorrow since I haven't this was the first time this summer I had ridden this bike. It is fast and effortless to steer but more responsive which was a bit scary at first this morning.

Having re-read my post I thought I should qualify my statement: Being a part of the "Steel is Real" crowd is akin to loving Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Heavy Metal music, or Monty Python. You either get it, or you don't... your approval (or lack thereof) has no bearing on my love affair. As for newbies I always suggest they ride as many bikes as possible before laying down the cash. It matters not to me whether that bike is steel, aluminum, carbon, or titanium; what does matter is that they love it. When I suggest a steel-framed bike as an alternative to the bike he or she is considering, I always add a disclaimer saying that my love for steel is personal and warn them with the iconic acronym, YMMV.

For the record, there are more aluminum bikes in my garage than there are steel ones... and one of them has been my ride all this week.

Well put.

There are wonderful bikes out there made of all frame materials, and there are awful bikes out there of all frame materials. An '80s gaspipe bike won't ride as well as a well-designed aluminum bike, all other things being equal. And all other things are rarely equal.

At the moment, I've got a steel road bike and an aluminum hardtail mountain bike - and I like both of them a lot (that's why I bought them!) My next bike, likely as not, will be either titanium or CF. If you're shopping for a bike, ride a bunch of them (test rides are free, after all), and buy the one you like best that meets all your needs.

Sweet ride! If you're anything like me, you'll hate Serfas Drifters in the wet. The recessed areas make glurp-glurp-glurp sounds. Sounds more like drdrdrdrdrdr when you're riding though.

Congratulations, you're on your way to getting something that works well for you and a lot of us commuters. There are a lot of us riding 90's steel diamond framed mountain bikes with thinner tires, they make great commuting bikes. Narrower tubes will make putting the narrower tires on much easily, and trigger shifters make shifting your newly cleaned chain even easier.

Now that you've wandered into the long running discussion of which frame material is best, you can look forward to some similar enlightenment if you ask if you should wear a helmet, wear cotton, wear underwear, wear hi vis clothing and ask which light should I use....

I love grip shift. Trigger shifters give me carpal tunnel

I had a 2006 specialized expedition with the grip shifters. THey were great and gave me no trouble at all. I really liked them

I wondered when this clip would show up. LOL

The beast of burden went to work today, but not to my job. Today was "commute my daughter around to various playgrounds" day.

Good job, Dad!

Today was "commute with my son to Tim Horton's for some Timbits and chocolate milk day," so we took out the old steel steed. It's nice when your kids are into biking.



For the less fortunate of you out there (i.e. those who live outside of Canada) Tim Horton's is our big coffee/donut chain and Timbits are their donut holes. Timmy's is practically a religion up here.

OK all you carbon fiber roadies, tell those kids, "Steel isn't real", I dare ya! If for no other reason, ride steel for the children

I'll be riding this steel steed to the beer store and then over to my buddy's house to watch some golf, 41lbs of steel loving:

People should ride what they enjoy the most. The OP discovered that he likes to roll around a bit slower on fatter MTB type tires. Good for him.

Beyond that, let's shelve all the frame material hooey. Or, go research radius to the 4th power and stiffness of a tube as a function of that and get back with us.

Steel envy rears its ugly head! Quit fighting it and join us

Please. Do you know what rides smoother than my steel cross bike with 28mm tires? My Alu cross bike with 32mm-35mm tires.

I had a new lesson in bike maintenance today. Crom (After telling the wife about this thread, that is now what she calls the steel Diamondback) was feeling a bit sluggish, even for a heavy old steel bike, and I noticed that one side of the front cantilever brake was always rubbing against the front wheel. I ended up watching a few online tutorials, and than completely taking the front brake assembly apart. I expected to just do some lubricating, but it turned out that the shaft on one side of the brake was slightly bent, causing the spring to do nothing. There was no way to bend it back to perfectly straight, so I had to grind down the outside diameter of the shaft until it would turn properly in the brass bushing. What a pain, but not as bad as yesterday. I took the ancient and wickedly dirty chain off yesterday and cleaned it by hand. I gotta get me on of those Park Tool chain washers.

New Gripshift grips and Power Grip straps should arrive tomorrow. This bike gets a little better every day.

And your religion has spread beyond your borders! Yesterday my son and I stopped by our local Tim's (Orchard Park, NY) for a donut and a muffin on our 10 mile ride around the village.

It is REALLY awesome to go tooling around with my son in the trailer. He will be three in a few weeks, so we spend the ride hollering back and forth to each other and making necessary stops at playground equipment and for any animal sightings.

To the OP, I think any old MTB makes a great commuter. I ride an '88 Cannondale rigid aluminum MTB on my 17 mile roundtrip commute. It is comfortable, durable, and keeps on ticking with very minimal maintenance. I've learned a lot from that old MTB in the three years that I've been riding it. For me it has been great to have a backup MTB for riding trails as well. When my younger brother wanted to ride with me on vacation, I threw some knobbies on it and rode the trails.

I had heard that there were some Tim Horton's in NY State. While they may have a monopoly up here I think they have some stiff competition South of the Border. Krispy Kreme had a go here but didn't last. Too bad... I loved those warm donuts!

When I lived in Michigan, the Tim Hortons had just started to make an appearance. Unfortunately, I've now moved to Boston which is heart of Dunkin Donuts country and there's no way Tim could make any inroads here.