Should I buy a steel, aluminium, carbon or titanium bike? Is it better to make a frame from cheese?

I often get asked about frame materials, having owned and ridden various materials in my time I'll give you my tuppence worth.

Steel: I had a Condor Fratello, it was lush. Beautifully made frame, sloping seat-stays and a relaxed position. These are designed to be used as fast/light touring bicycles really, I used mine as a commuter (in and out of London from Letchworth a lot, fairly long for a commute) and a winter bike. I didn't dare take it out on the grottiest of days though, it was a very pretty bike. The ride feel with steel is always described as having a bit of "spring" to it. It was more forgiving than the hack I had before which it replaced but then there were other factors that could possibly change the ride quality. Steel is a "classic" material. Heavier than some aluminium frames, lighter than some, if you buy high grade steel then it can be lighter than carbon but will also be pretty stiff so will lose some of that forgiving ride feel. It's easy to work with and starts fairly cheap so prices for frames start low and go very, very high in the right custom frame building hands. It's such a versatile material that it can be made into a great fat-bike and also a well honed road racing/time trialling machine. One big bonus of touring on a steel frame is that if you snap it/bend it god forbid, it can be fixed pretty easily in almost any country that you might happen to be in.

Aluminium: I ride mostly aluminium bikes at the moment. They're cheaper than carbon and I find that a high grade aluminium frameset is often lighter than a slightly more expensive low grade carbon frameset. Generally thought of as a more harsh ride than steel, carbon or Ti but light and with hydroforming often built into some interesting shapes it's generally cheaper than the other materials too. The road bike and gravel bike frames I currently ride the most are made by a company called Kinesis who specialise in aluminium framesets (well, their alloy is called Kinesium). The ride feel isn't harsh in the slightest, not from what I can tell anyway. In my last season riding the road races you'd see quite a few people turning up on aluminium frames such as the Kinesis Aithein or Cannondale CAAD frames. They're as light as carbon and pretty stiff too and don't cost you the earth when some chopper rides across the front of the bunch and wipes everybody out on a perfectly safe bit of road in the neutralised zone (for newbies - chopper is not a complimentary term). I don't road race anymore, so going super fast on a road bike isn't my priority really. Not having a sore arse is though so very much enjoying the wide clearance my 4S disc has for wide tyres at lowish pressures.

Carbon: Often thought of as the ultimate material to make a bike out of, I don't think I'd disagree from a point of speed. There's a reason that all the bikes in the grand tours these days are carbon (pretty much). It can be super light, super stiff and can be woven into pretty much any shape you want to make a bike in. It's more than often super-expensive too. I've had a couple of carbon bikes in my time, a cervelo time trial bike and the road bike I raced on was a Cannondale Supersix Evo Nano. At the time I was working on a fairly long running west end show so had some good regular dosh coming in and could afford the luxury of sticking a featherweight piece of carbon between my legs to roll around the country lanes on. The ride feel is more forgiving than aluminium if the bike is built well, it's lighter and stiffer. The longevity of the material is a little unknown and if you look at the manufacturer's instructions they will often have a disclaimer about putting their frame on a turbo as the lateral strength of carbon isn't so hot. I got knocked off my first carbon bike I owned by a careless S(orry)M(ate)ID(idn't)S(ee)Y(ou) driver. It wasn't a bad knock, a slow collision, I was fine but the bike was a complete write off as the front of the car made contact with the downtube from the side (I was pretty much sitting on the bonnet of the car before the driver saw me) and collapsed it completely. I wouldn't buy a carbon bike second hand personally unless I knew the history of the bike. If carbon is crashed it can often become very weak with no visible signs on the outside of the frame.

Titanium: Ti is a great frame building material. All the spring off steel without the weight penalty, although more than often the penalty on your wallet will be the same if not more than carbon. Another beautiful material as well, Ti bikes look fantastic. I had a road bike for some time (replaced my steel Condor) that was fantastic. I rode to the south of France on it with a couple of bike-packing bags on. It was almost perfect, I picked it up off eBay for a bargain and built it up with a low end groupset and used it as a general riding around bike, bit of light touring and the local chain gang a couple of times as well as fitting mudguards on it for the winter. Titanium is notoriously hard to work with which is why it's so expensive. With better power transfer than a lot of steel/alloy frames it's seen as the poshest of metal bikes you can buy. Pretty much. They make space ships out of this stuff. People say: "your bike will last longer than you". It's true. It's pretty bombproof. My current time trial bike is titanium and gets a lot of attention at the time trials... very safe to buy Ti second hand if there are no visible cracks at the joins.

Cheese: Only go with Parmesan or the other Italian hard cheeses unless you want a very short bike ride, Brie and similar soft cheeses really don't cut it.

Basically every material that you're looking at will be sold to you using the following words:

Lighter

Faster

Stiffer

Power transfer

Most comfortable

Least/most edible

Every material can cover pretty much all of these things, it depends whether it fits in your budget to do so and what you like looking at. My personal thoughts are that if you ride an aluminium bike and you want to experience that "springy" steel feel, take 10psi out of your tyres or better still, whack on the widest tyres that will get through the frame and run them at 55psi. That'll give you the spring and comfort you want and you won't sacrifice a huge amount of speed for it either. After you've ridden whichever bike you decide on for a while you'll not notice whether it's more or less comfortable, it's just your bike and if your position on it is good then you'll be able to ride it for hours and hours with no problems, fast or slow.

I wouldn't get too bogged down in the specifics, the weight of the frame and aerodynamics of the tubes are going to make a difference, but not as much of a difference as improving your position or gaining 10 watts on your FTP. It's cheaper to lose a few pounds off your waist by stepping up the aerobic exercise/sorting out what you eat than spend that extra 2k on the next grade of carbon up. Do you really need it?

Whatever you end up buying, look after it. It will look after you for a long time if you do (credit to Joe Sharpe's dad for that one).