> I prefer the steel frame even with a little extra weight since it is smoother than the madone I used to own.
Interesting you should compare your steel frame with the Trek Madone. I am just about the same height and weight as my nephew. He owns a Trek Madone which he races in the local club programs. My road bike is a custom Spectrum 30th Anniversary built with nos Columbus tubing and Cinelli lugs and bottom bracket. He bought his Madone stock with a SRAM group, zipp carbon wheels and some sort of 700x23 tires. The Madone may be able to accommodate 25s, but it would be awful tight. My Spectrum has a mix of Stronglight and Campy parts, some custom modified by Peter Weigle. Wheels are JPW modified campy hubs and Mavic M2 rims sourced through Jan Heine's private stash - Jan sold them as part of a fund raiser. Tires are Grand Bois Extra Leger 700x30. We both regularly ride from the city to my father's (his grandfather's) house - about 60 miles one way using a mix of trails and bike friendly streets. One weekend on the ride up to my Dad's we traded bikes. The Trek is lighter with a higher gear ratio than my Spectrum and took somewhat less effort to move. But I experienced a lot more road feel than riding my Spectrum. As a result, by the end of the ride I was more fatigued and sore than at the end of the same ride on my Spectrum. My nephew wears padded shorts and riding gloves. I tried padded shorts once years ago, did not like and have never worn them since. His handle bars have thick padded tape. I use Japanese cotton tape. The different wheels and tires probably had more to do with the discomfort I experienced on the Madone than any other factor. And of course one could get a Calfee or possibly and Argonaut or other customs CF frame and fork that fit more comfortable wheels and tires. But then price becomes a factor. Madone list is almost $5k. Most full custom CF frames go for a lot more. I paid $3.3k for the full custom Spectrum. The JPW custom and rare NOS parts I have on the Spectrum would be pretty expensive assuming JPW even agreed to make more. But these could be more than adequately replaced with a Shimano touring group. Maybe this will change in time, but for the money you can get more comfort with pretty good speed going steel over CF. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
