veganbikes

Well Colnago has made excellent steel bikes for a long time but so has Waterford (they used to be Schwinn Paramount back when that meant something).

Certainly for looks and more well known prestige Colnago is tough to beat. It has Glico style tubing and lugs which is always nice and desirable.

However the Gunnar has a more modern build with a little more modern geometry. It also gives you more custom options to make the bike work better for you and is made in the US.


As much as I love Colnago and would love to own one especially with a Campagnolo 50th Anniversary groupset, I might say modernity might win out for a more practical ride.

Now for other steel I would say Chris Bishop who does lovely steel bikes with really great paint and lovely lugs that will just make you feel all warm and fuzzy. However there are a ton of other great steel builders from, Brian Chapman, Co-Motion, Don Walker, Winter Independent Fabrications, Vanilla/Speedvagen, Breadwinner, Yamaguchi, Stonier and plenty of others including a bunch outside of the U.S. There are many who build more specialized bikes say if you are looking for a touring bike or randonneur or racing bike. There are also plenty of companies building more basic stock builds like Surly, All City, Soma as well as a lot of bigger names many of which got their start in steel.

You really need to figure out what you plan on doing with the bike and let people here know and we can help better. If you can go custom, I highly recommend it. Getting a bike built for your specifications and your unique fit is quite nice. Being able to talk to a frame builder and have them use their expert knowledge to build you something tailor made for you is beyond compare. However there are plenty of great stock frames out there that can do well.