Originally Posted by 63rickert

A couple of counterpoints.

Notoriously noodly Vitus frames won lots of races. Sean Kelly alone won hundreds of pro races on Vitus. Although, in fairness, some of those were won on faux-Vitus by Sabliere, which were far lighter (5.5kg complete with pedals, clips, straps, bottle cages) and even more flexible than a Vitus. Kelly was a sprinter. Exactly the guy you'd think would want a stiff frame. He won on what they gave him.

Originally Cegedur-Pechiney did not want to assemble frames at all. They wanted to sell kits to bike shops who would do some simple cutting and gluing. Almost no one took them up on that. The basic design was simplified, dumbed down, and overbuilt so that bike shop guys could have done it. Part of the original sales pitch was racers trash lots of frames in a season, makes sense to put them on an easily replaced cheapie. Original pricing would have had them at about half the price of basic volume produced 531 frames and a small fraction of prestige frames. This is back in 1973. Not many here know much about what was going on in 1973, which is the standard by which a Vitus should be judged.

No one, and I mean no one, not myself, not Saint Sheldon, not Jobst Brandt, knows much about what role frame stiffness versus flexibility plays in operating a bike at speed. Stiffness has a big big role in sales and it is a darn good thing most of what the ad copy says about stiffness has never been mentioned to the engineers.

As for longevity I know two local Vitus 979s, one late 70s, one early 80s, that are still in use. Both owners keep expecting the bike to die on the next ride but are always disappointed. Which is not to say aluminum does not break. Up above some commenter said something about are you going to quit using aluminum parts because aluminum breaks. Then gave a list of usually aluminum parts. I've broken all of those. Some are better considered as service parts. Rims and handlebars are definitely service parts.

They all break. Titanium and carbon break rather a lot, mostly because they require superhuman perfection in their construction and errors slip in. The more it costs the less likely the owner is going to talk about it.

Most bikes never see much use at all. Most bikes are purchased as garage ornaments. Few actually ride the things. Those that do ride a lot tend to own a lot of bikes which cuts down on the wear and tear each bike sees. If everyone rode the bike they bought no manufacturer could afford the warranty charges.

Some seem to be catching on that the design possibilities of carbon titanium aluminum are very broad. What can be designed in steel is even more various. And if you can dream it up you can easily build it in steel. The number of people who have ridden steel bikes that were not mass produced, or did not conform tightly to a genre (80s Italian) is real small.