here's my thinking. I want to get a good bike that i know i wont need to replace any components for at least a year. Hence specialized. If i really get into this bike thing, which i see happening, then i will get another bike down the road. I figure i will buy a steel frame and build my own ss around that. It should be much more rewarding that way, and i'll have a great bike still with the tri-X. I'm sure this bike will be a blast!

i did quite a bit of research on this whole catastrophic failure thing. It seems it was mostly earlier aluminum products which did this. They seem to really have this process almost perfected at this point.

If you have any links pm me--the whole steel/alum
debate is one of perpetual interest.

here are two poor ones:

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...t=#post7551798

M-a-s-i