Originally Posted by
tallbikeman
I know a lot of us have friends that own or work in bicycle shops. At my size I have been consistently warned away from both aluminum and carbon fiber bicycles. The friends I know all said the same thing. They break too often. I have thus stayed with steel which is not as strong as carbon and much heavier, but generally has a gentler failure mode. Steel bicycle components fail too, but I believe at a much lower rate that the aluminum/carbon bicycles. The way steel is made into piping gets rid of air pockets and reliably homogenizes the material into just steel and no voids
The people giving you this advice are ignorant. Modern aluminum frames fail less frequently than steel frames from BITD. I am your size (used to be bigger) and have had several steel frames fail, but not aluminum, which is my preferred material now. I saw on your profile that you have old non-super-lightweight steel bikes, which may last a long time. The argument that 'steel is better for heavy riders' ignore the spectrum of quality and design that can make a material suitable or unsuitable.