Are you certain about this? Because I'm not sure it's true based on my own relatively recent experience test-riding a variety of fairly serious road-cycling frames.
Steel is the best frame material for 95% of people due to its durability. Quality steel frames (not Schwinn travellers) are quite light. Cro-moly frames like Salsa are a good choice and weigh around 2-3 kg vs 1-2 kg for a carbon frame. There's plenty of framebuilders who can build custom frames out of other alloys as well. There's been steel frames built down to a kilo.
If you have a problem with harshness, wrap the bars with another layer of bar tape. Another option is to use wider lower PSI tires, preferably with wider 23mm rims. Not only is it softer, but the rolling resistance is actually less than standard road rims and tires.
>custom
Sure, but that's pretty pricey compared to off-the-rack carbon or aluminum.
What was the actual conclusion of the study you remember? That there's no difference? Because that seems like a questionable thing to conclude, and it makes me wonder how they controlled for other factors like frame and bike weight, differences in geometry, etc.
Most serious riders are also cultivating a relationship with a local shop, and that drives some choices, too. For example, when I bought my bike, I did slightly prefer the one I bought (a Specialized Roubaix) over the endurance-geometry offerings from Trek, Cannondale, Giant, etc. However, the other part of the decision was that I liked the shop in question MUCH MUCH more than any of the other shops, in terms of location, vibe, friendliness, overall impressions, mechanic repuation, etc. I would've bought from this shop even if the bike they were selling wasn't my first choice, as long as the margin was small (and they were).
Steel makers don't have that dealer network.
I have a bike made with True Temper OX Platinum steel and it is my favorite bike by far. It is a very light frame, but that is not what I like about it. Steel (and titanium) frames can be made with tubing of a much smaller diameter than that of aluminum or carbon. I believe that the tube diameter (and associated stiffness) is what people are feeling when they talk about the difference between bikes.
If you make a steel bike with tubing that is indistinguishable from aluminum or carbon, I am not surprised that nobody can tell the difference!
As for durability, I’ve been riding a 1200g Bianchi 928 for the last 12 years with no change in its behaviour.
Unlike steel or aluminium, carbon fibre doesn’t work harden so, as long as you don’t crash it, it will be MORE durable than steel.
Also because carbon frames are layed up by hand, you can can have different properties vertically vs laterally. So stiff side to side but with vertical flex at the bottom bracket ...or anything else you want.
You can even put stuff like flax seed in the resin to absorb vibration, just like this wooden frame claims to do.
Carbon is a better material for bikes than steel is.
It just lacks the romance because it’s harder for a lone bloke in his shed to weld.
(I still want one of these wooden bikes because n+1 and can you imagine rocking up to a club ride on one. :D )
Steel is almost perfectly elastic below its fatigue limit. It never fails for stress underneath this, since the elastic motion doesn't generate new dislocations or anything. It is true that aluminum has no lower fatigue limit, but outside of crashes, this occurs so slowly as to be meaningless on human timescales.
>Also because carbon frames are layed up by hand, you can can have different properties vertically vs laterally. So stiff side to side but with vertical flex at the bottom bracket ...or anything else you want.
That is 100% not true. Bike frames are all highly stiff vertically because of the diamond tube shape. There is no practical bikeframe of any material that has non-negligible vertical compliance. That is just marketing fluff.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
More to the point, however, I think that human minds often handle perception in general, but the problem of objectively observing the subjective is somewhat less tractable.