LoneCyclone

All day on bike forums I read posts about how aluminum is harsh, steel is much better on long rides and carbon has the best of all worlds.

Honestly, I own a steel one speed and 09 CAAD9-6. I feel no difference really between the two. I just ride my dang bike and enjoy going fast

If I wanted to worry about every tiny possible discomfort (honestly, difference between steel and aluminum, GFY), I wouldn't be exercising/training/commuting on a bike.

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Caad 8

Its all about carbon fiber anyway, right guys?

robotkiller

A well designed frame is going to ride well. Any material can be screwed up.

ptle

It may be from just what I've read and learned, but I can feel a difference between steel and aluminum. The steel bike feels much more comfortable while the aluminum feels faster and stiffer.

knobster

I've had several Trek aluminum bikes and each and every one rode quite harsh. So much I almost quit cycling because I thought it had to be me. After switching to CF, I found out it wasn't me. Now I have a couple Specialized Tricross cyclocross bikes which are aluminum. They ride great. As good as the CF bikes I've had, even with 23's. It's how the manufacturer makes the frame, not the material.

hopsing08

good to know. i had a 1.2 frame and put a full rival group on it. feels fast but rides like crap. very painful. put a carbon seatpost on it, helped, but i jumped on my dads 2007 specialized tarmac comp. insane the difference between the two frames. now im pissed i even wasted the time and money.

LesMcLuffAlot

you must have a big squishy butt.....

thirdin77

So how long have you been stewing over this?

NathanC

Nothing wrong with my aluminium.

merlin55

Aluminum, steel, Titanium, and carbon all have different stiffness and strength properties. The wall thickness and tube diameter/shape can make huge differences in how any frame rides. I've had great frames from all of these materials.

Carbon fiber is very light, very stiff, and offers complete freedom in the design of the tube shapes and junctions. Hence it is the current material du jour.

milliron

Did a nice little 32 mile road ride with a friend's CAAD and was blown away by how comfortable it was. Not at all what I was expecting.

Caad 8

I have a question, I've seen some people post, oh this bike is stiff, this one isnt, how do you tell how stiff it is. I cant tell how stiff my bike is.

knobster

For me it's the comparison from riding different bikes. Just about every aluminum bike I've ridden is stiff meaning it doesn't flex, well not as much as other types of frames. I've had carbon frames that were stiff, but others that were flexy.

Braden1550

A well designed carbon frame should be laterally stiff, and vertically complient for comfort, with consideration given to freaks like Cavendish and in general the bb area for flex. Aluminium must have a larger wall thickness and oversized tubing in order to achieve a strong enough frame suitable for road use-this means it will generally be very stiff. I have little to no understanding on Titanium, and I did about 2k kilometers on my steel 10 speed before getting my vivace, and the difference in "road buzz" was huge-old steelie dampened a lot more of it then does the aluminum Vivace. Of course, these days, you can have the best of both worlds with just about any material.

sced

It's all about the engineering design and fabrication quality. Compared to airplanes and cars, which are made from lots of different metals and plastics (including composites), bike frames are really, really simple. The fact that it took the bike industry 50 years after the largely aluminum P51 Mustang to figure out how to kinda use aluminum to make an ok bike frame says a lot about how scientifically backward it is. Aerospace engineers have known for 80 years what fabulous materials aluminum alloys are for high performance applications.

Jay Andriot

The long battle for manufacturers has always been between stiffness and lightness. With steel the only way they were getting light is to make the tube very thin. When the steel got too thin it got whimpy. So they looked to aluminum. Much lighter. So they went overboard and made light stiff frames. Great for power transmission, not so great for ride. It took them a while to get the right balance between light and stiff for both materials, some did better than others.

Retro Grouch 

So there's TWO of us!

I own 2 road bikes: A butted steel Bridgestone frame beater, and an aluminum Klein Quantum Race. I just don't feel this huge difference that everybody except you and me talks about.

MCODave

My main rides are a carbon Trek and a steel Gios. My friend brought over his aluminum Giant TCR last week to do some work on, and left it with me since that weekend was Rosh Hashanah (no riding for him).

So I did my Saturday morning ride on his TCR. 33 miles over all sorts of crappy roads, including one that was actively under construction. I had no problems at all with the comfort of the bike, and (if I adjusted the seatpost a little) would have had no problems doing another hundred miles more. So I am convinced that well designed aluminum can ride just fine.

AEO

remnants from earlier days. people stuck with the mindset that material makes a difference.

If you're old enough to remember, cars and car parts made in Japan had very shoddy manufacturing quality right after the war. Now they have some of the best manufacturing quality for cars.

I have a steel CX frame that's quite stiff and harsh riding because it's overbuilt for my weight and riding style. On the other hand, the CAAD9 I have is about equal in terms of stiffness and harshness. And since I still have both of those, I can honestly say they're not harsh, I can ride 100miles with them and still not feel beat up at the end of the ride.

khackney

You probably need a bigger pool of reference to judge from. I have the oportunity to ride several different bikes and will say that even two carbon bikes will feel different. The comparison between two specific bikes made of different material may be relatively small. For example your CAAD and a steel frame. The Cannondale had a rep for being a smooth riding Alu frame. But, take a ride on say a Fuji Altair frame and compare that to a Ridley Orion CF frame. You'll notice the difference. Is it huge? Depends on your definition of what a "big" difference is.

Phantoj

I say let the tires do the cushioning; give me a STIFF frame!

The vertical compliance of the frame is minimal compared to the tires, seat rails, bending of the seatpost. A frame is a truss - of course it's going to be vertically stiff.

I know "you" (generically) can feel a difference, but "you" can also tell the difference between audio power cables, Magic Pebbles, Tice clock, etc. Humans will tend to perceive what they expect to perceive.

But in a blind test, "you" can't tell the difference in sound between a mega-thousand $$ power cable and a simple but adequate cable. And "you" can't tell the difference between an aluminum frame and a carbon or steel frame - see the famous Tour Magazine blind test.

WMBIGS

I've got a Cannondale mtn bike from the mid 90's. I put skinny slicks on a pumped them up, harsh ride. Bike would skip around turns when hitting little bumps. Not comfy at all. Put 2.0 slicks on with a little less pressure smoothed it out. Bought 2.2 knobbies to help out in the dirt.
Had a Vitus road frame. Standard size aluminum tubing. Super cushy ride, great for centuries. Sucked going fast down hill, frame too flexy. Never felt like I was in control of where bike was going coming down the big hills. Got some front derailer rub when mashing up the hills.
Currently riding my old steel Bianchi, good ride and handling. Wouldn't mind another aluminum frame, hear the Langster is comfy.

RichCT

I wasn't aware that a caad9 came in a steel frame. got pics?

Nevermind. Just reread the OP.

khackney

So you're saying if two bikes of any kind had the same equipment with the only varable being the frame, they would feel identicle when riding on a normal road with variable surface conditions?



Sorry, I'm not buying it. You might not be able to identify what material you were riding at the time. But you would know they were different. I'm also not saying there is anything wrong with aluminum frames. I own one.

BigBlueToe

When you read as much about bicycling as I do it's easy to get a little spooked. I had read over and over about how harsh aluminum was compared to steel, but I wanted a lighter bike. When a used Specialized Allez frame came on Ebay in my size (XXL) for $200, I bought it. It has a carbon fork (doesn't every aluminum bike these days?) and I put a carbon seatpost on it - mostly because I was worried about the harshness.

Well, after building it up and riding it for half a year, I have to report that it's the most comfortable bike I've ever owned. I think part of it has to do with how I set it up (or more accurately, how poorly I had set up my previous bikes.) I evidently got the bar height, bar angle, brake hoods, etc. right this time, because nothing gets sore, no matter how far I ride. (My butt did, but I put on a Brooks B17 and that solved that.)

Granted, I don't have much experience to draw on. Sure, I've been a dedicated rider for over 40 years, but have only had a few bikes in that time. I haven't ridden every modern type of bike to compare.

All I'm saying is that if you're worried about aluminum's harshness like I was, maybe you don't need to be.