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I don't know how best to explain it, but there is something a little dead and soulless about carbon fibre as a material for bike frames. It's objectively a great way to build; it can be shaped for aerodynamics and compliance, and it can be repaired if it cracks. But it's also impossible to recycle.

Steel and Titanium just feels better to me. Ride feel and compliance is a characteristic of the metal itself, each tube joined together by hand making each frame completely unique and not just a single lump of composite baked in an oven.

A good steel or titanium frame could last forever, if it wasn't for the constant arms race to make 'better' bikes with fewer and fewer interchangeable and standardised parts.

There are few things in cycling more boring than claims of minute watt savings at speeds that are unattainable for most amateurs thanks to some new aero innovation. Somehow we fall for it.