I have carbon, steel, and titanium bikes. For rough roads and gravel, I have a GT Grade carbon with a Rudy fork. With 50mm tires, it gives me very comfortable ride and is moderately fast. I have a steel bike, an All City Space Horse, which fitted with 45mm tires, it is perfectly adequate for rough roads and gravel, and is very stable and comfortable for long-haul rides. My titanium bike is a GT Xizang 29er, which is set up more-or-less as a gravel bike. It weighs in at just under 9kg with a carbon fork, which is pretty light for a bike with 2.25" tires. I love to ride this bike around town, it is smooth, stable, climbs very well, and the big tires handle the worst roads, and can handle the trails near the metro area.

The difference in ride quality between materials has more to do with factors other than the materials themselves. If your choices are limited, go with the one which fits best.

Steel, and its not even close.

Titanium only if you are a bicycle nerd. Will be like 3x+ the cost

I would also say to just get an aluminum bicycle, but the thing is is that steel bicycles are more durable because the metal can bend and flex without fatiguing. You probably wont push the bicycle to this limit, few do, so you dont care

I doubt you will be able to tell the difference between any of the above metals or even plastic bikes. All work fine

This doesn't dispute what Trakkhack had to say though tbh. Aluminum is the obvious economical choice for a good toughness:weight ratio. Bringing plastics into the equation muddies the waters in a number of ways. The cost skyrocket and the toughness becomes harder to quantify.

You can't get parts or tires for a mechanical rim brake bike? Where have you been looking? I have no problem finding new parts for my older bikes, which include 8, 9 and 10 speed with max tire size 25 or 28, rim brakes.

I ridden all the material and have found all of them to have their pluses and minuses. I recently built up a Lynskey Ti frame for gravel, great bike, very forgiving with rock strikes. Gives me the ability to ride with fairly good size tires that work well for my needs. The geometry worked so well for me, I bought the same frame model for a second build, only this time as an all road \ endurance bike with a 2x road setup. Each bike allows me to accomplish different things with some overlap on occasion and have been very happy with my decision.

While Ti , just like carbon\steel, can be very expensive, if you look around and do your research, you can find a very well made frames that have the geometry you need at your budget. When I was looking at frame manufacturers, I found prices between $2K and $12K just for the frames in Ti\Steel\Carbon, frame weight wise, Ti\Steel was not always the heaviest, and when it was, not by as much as you would think. In many cases, the Ti\Steel frame cost less. For my needs, I decided on the Lynskey Elysium Ti frame, which was very reasonably priced compared to other Ti frames models I had researched.

Just do your research, find a geometry that works for you, and then set your budget. Both my builds weigh in around 20 lbs. I do not have to worry about mountains or do a lot of climbing, so bike weight was not a top consideration for me, and I am running some fairly wide tires on both which adds some weight. There are carbon bikes that weigh more than my two builds selling for extensively more money than my two build did and I built them up using high end components. Again, do your research, if you can, I highly recommend building from a frame, then you can pick the parts you need, in the size you need, and not have to pay for things you are just going to replace.

Good luck

Only thing I can add - do some research on which CF frame, or any frame for that matter, has the ride qualities that you are looking for. And finding research that actually tells the whole story is very difficult - many reviews are corrupted by the brands... a bike reviewer can't just say a frame is crap if they want to keep reviewing.

My CF CX/Gravel bike is flat out brutal to ride. It is the stiffest most unforgiving frame I've ever been on - and its now equipped with 650b 47mm tires at 35-40PSI.

Some are probably better, some may not be... hard part is finding out which one isn't.

I have some pretty old steel bikes that I occasionally ride. Hard to believe how much faster I am and more comfortable on the "new" bikes. But that is comparing a 1975 steel Raleigh to a 2015 Lynskey Ti. If you buy a new bike now, it will be up to date for maybe 5 years. Then easy parts availability for another 5 years. Kinda like a car. But 10 years out parts will be difficult to get, but you have had many miles of enjoyment, so time for a new one anyway.

Almost 70 yrs old, so I figure that I have one more "forever" bike left in me. Maybe 2?

I don't believe in a forever bicycle. At least not in the respect that it is supposed to be the final bike you ever purchase.

Having multiple forever bikes and getting new forever bikes is okay. IMO

I just don't have the room for them. So when I get the itch for a new bike, the old one will be given away.

I have one bike, steel, that I will keep forever... so I guess its a forever bike. And eventually I will buy a CF bike, a Time, that I will keep forever... but it won't be my last bike.

If the Ti bike was spring-like and the steel was not, that was about design and geometry, not material. Same goes for aluminum and CF.

True, in my experience. Designers make dozens of decisions about geometry and other characteristics that are over my head, but I've found that I can usually predict that I'll like a bike if it has my preferred wheelbase (within a half-centimeter, anyway) and head tube length (same) for a given type of riding. The rest seems to take care of itself.

Indeed. "Forever bike" is really just "foreseeable future bike".

Have three road bikes, two all-steel and one titanium with CF fork. Of the three the Ti bike has the nicest ride on lousy surfaces. How much is due to material and how much is from the design I couldn't say. The Ti's weight advantage is obvious and not easy to match by steel.

Also have CF and Al bikes and will slot Ti between them in order of preference.

Happy shopping!

This is a picture of my Surly Long Haul Trucker, a very durable steel touring bike. it fell over in my shop, and hit the top tube on the sharp edge of my work stand. After consulting with some frame builders, the verdict was to ride it. I took it on a fully loaded tour this summer, and it did not have any issues. This would have totaled my aluminum touring bike, and would have been very hard on a carbon frame. I'm not sure how titanium would have handled the impact. My aluminum bike weighs just about the same as the steel LHT.



Touring bikes are used in all kind of conditions. I'm assuming the same applies to gravel bikes.

If the steel is the latest and greatest stuff (air-hardened and heat treated, like Reynolds 853) the weight advantage will be rather slight -- maybe 8-10 ounces for a medium-sized frame. And if cost is a constraint, the steel frame will cost so much less that a person might be able to then afford lighter wheels and other components.

Figure it out after all the conflicting advice?

My take. Look at bikes, you have a good advantage since you work at a bike shop, then choose the one that "does it" for you. As far as materials go, all will be functional. Ti may give a better ride over steel, but of course that depends on the steel and how the frame was made. I ride steel, but don't get me wrong, I think Ti bikes are fantastic, and for a lot of riding I would choose it over carbon fibre. Ti bikes are beautiful.

A carbon fibre bike doesn't do it for me. I have yet to see one that moves me in that way. Many Ti bikes do. Carbon fibre bikes are technically absolutley incredible, but I would choose a Ti bike, and a steel bike over them any day. That is just me, and based on looks and feelings only. I love the way a carbon fibre bike rides and all, but they just don't excite me.

Full disclosure. I still own my 1984 Ross Mt. Rainier, bought new in 1984. It still does it for me. My Surly LHT does as well.

Titanium is very cool. I wouldn’t mind having a Ti bike someday. I’m not sure if I will or not, though. Is it better than steel? Well, it has more corrosion resistance and it can be built into a lighter frame. It is a bit less tough, though. And it’s quite a bit more expensive, which is the sticking point for me.

I’ve been hearing this claim that steel bikes will last longer because steel doesn’t have a fatigue limit the whole 20+ years I’ve been into bikes. And in that time, I’ve heard of and seen a LOT of steel frames experience fatigue failures. Yes, steel as a material has a fatigue limit, but you can’t assume that any given steel frame therefore has a fatigue limit and that normal riding forces will be below it. In fact, you should always assume the opposite - any and every bicycle can be expected to wear out and fail given enough use.

230-280 grams is a fairly significant difference in frame weight, though. Even if it’s not much of the overall build. A very light steel road frame will be somewhere around 1500 grams, though I’ve found a reference to an ultralight Tange Ultimate frame that was 1250. That’s pretty porky as “ultralight” goes. Meanwhile, light Ti road frames can be around 1100-1200 grams. Still not impressive in a world of high-modules carbon fiber, but significantly lighter than a typical lightweight steel frame. Apparently the lightest Ti frames are sub-900 grams. So over 300 below the lightest steel frame I can find a reference to. Of course you’re right about the money, but Ti has never been about value. The kinds of people I know who go all-in on a high-end Ti bike don’t usually end up cheaping out on the rest of the components. But of course you could spend quite a bit less on a carbon bike and be lighter still.

I put the important part in bold font. 230-280 grams will not be discernible to even the most sensitive rider, and it won't make any measurable difference in speed.

A sub-900 gram ti frame, if such a thing even exists (I'm curious to see your source) would have a low weight limit and would likely still ride like a wet noodle...same for any steel frame that weighs only a few hundred grams more. Anyone seriously interested in building a lightweight bike would not start with either of those materials.

To the OP - Everyone of these answers are great and I could not give you any advice on which frame material would be better. The only thing that I can say is I purchased a Lynskey GR300 frame from Lynskey and had my local shop build me a bike. It's a lot more bike than I will ever use but it's mine and I always enjoy riding it ( at least up until last week when I got a knee replacement in which the way I feel I may never ride it again ). I could have ordered a complete bike from Lynskey and had them ship it but I let my local shop build it for me. I spent quite a bit more by them doing it because they put a lot better components on the bike than came on the standard one built at Lynskey, not that I would really know the difference. The advice I can say is call Lynskey and talk to them about a Ti bike and they might have something that might work for you. They are very nice people and can give you some great info. Their frames are warrantied for life. Good luck with your endeavor, boomer

Litespeed claim 871g for a size Medium Ghisallo, but it comes with a 187 lb rider weight limit, and IIRC the Ghisallo of old was indeed a noodle - can’t imagine the current iteration is any different

$7000 for the frame alone. A fraction of that price would get you a lighter cf frame with a weight limit 100 lbs higher and MUCH better ride quality.

Seriously, this whole line of reasoning reminds me of a poster who, a while back, was insisting that a steel frame could be as light as cf; as evidence, he offered some frame that, as it turned out, seemed to be a one-off proof of concept thing that wasn't actually for sale. Sure, a person can actually buy that Lightspeed Ghisallo...But why? Just to demonstrate that you can waste money on something inferior?

I agree from my strength of materials experience with the general finding from the industry that in general aluminum and carbon fiber will have a life of 10 years of less, steel maybe twice that and Ti a few times that.

That's claptrap.

I am nowhere near old enough to be called a boomer lol. But, thanks for the knowledge anyways. Also yes the LBS that I work for does offer discounts to the brands we sell. None of them offer steel or ti bikes. Which isn't really a problem since my Fuji has been perfectly fine. it's a aluminum frame with a carbon fork, 2*9 speed, relatively thin tires compared to some newer options, etc.

Later on in life when I'm not making 16 dollars an hour I'll probably come back to this thread and look into a Ti bike when money isn't so tight. Still, maybe I might get a really good deal on something so who knows.