Campag4life

How I feel as well. My last steel bike was a 2005 Bianchi. I grew up riding steel. I don't have disdain for steel as it has a nice springy feel but I prefer Al.
In fact for me, an Al road bike..in the last five years with advancements is almost a jump ball with carbon. I love late model Al bikes with a good carbon fork.

The rest is tires as the OP stated. If riding bad roads, get an Al endurance or gravel bike that will fit 32c tires...or wider.

For me, steel and Ti are a jumpball. Also the same as Al and carbon. I prefer carbon for the lightest fast roadbike with the most muted feel but Al cost/benefit is the best material out there. Hard to find a steel road bike in Europe. If they aren't carbon, they are Al.

Campag4life

Sorry but have to disagree. No free lunch or all road bikes would be on 38mm tires. No doubt you like the plush ride, but they have a cost in weight, rolling resistance and aero drag deficit.

Now if you ride horrible broken roads, there would be a case for being faster. Why mountain bikes have 50mm+ tire width. But not on smoother paved roads.

Cyclist0108

I never said I was faster (but Strava says I have set a bunch of PRs. They have so many segments I have no idea if this is statistically meaningful, but it does indicate, as does my average speed on my 20 mile hilly commute) that I haven't taken a performance hit.

JohnJ80

The actual material that the frame is made out of has surprisingly little impact on the quality of the ride. However, the design of that frame with the given material can have a big impact on ride quality/comfort. But, as the OP noted, the tire selection has an even larger impact.

So I built a cross frame out of steel from a known high quality builder. Somewhere along the line, signals got crossed, the builder is uber conservative, and the frame came out too stiff - even more so after I lost some weight. I changed everything, fork from steel to carbon, seat post from Al to carbon and a known compliant one, handlebars to carbon, changed saddles etc... All of those things had incremental differences but when I switched the tires from 25mm to 30mm tires (Schwalbe G-1 speeds) the ride from barely acceptable for a two hour ride to downright plush. Rubber was the biggest difference. The frame went from one that I did not like to one of my favorites rides in my collection.

Another example of how the material matters. I had a road frame made out of stainless by a local frame builder (Anderson Custom Bikes in St. Paul) with one of the design goals being to fix my fit problem (long legs, long torso, short arms) and to get some more vertical compliance in the frame for longer ride comfort. The bike was to be a pure road bike to accommodate a max of 28c tires. Long story made short - the frame (because of it's design) is a plush ride on 25c tires because the design of the frame, in concert with the material, makes for a good ride.

So it's just inaccurate to say that you have to have a frame of a given material. That's only a third of the story - you have to talk about the frame design with the material and you have to talk about the wheels and tires. So anyone that says "Steel is real" and you're supposed to presume that means that the ride is going to be fine, if basically full of it. You can pretty much make a frame with any ride characteristic (good or bad, stiff or plush) you want out of any material that is commonly used for frames today. The big reason to have a steel frame today is that it is - by far - the easiest material for a custom frame maker to work with.

J.

Metieval

I replaced my 28c GP4000sII with 38c Pasela PT folding at a very minimal loss. like maybe .5 mph on average and the same 20 mile loop that I regularity ride. Yes I feel the weight penalty.

However when we compare the 28 GP4000 to a Barlow pass, that weight penalty is MUCH LESS 330 to 380 gram, and the Barlow Pass will have far less rolling resistance! and your aero drag deficit won't come into play until you start approaching 25 mph.

I have no idea what roads you all ride, but I ride Chip seal.

I plan on a new sub 20lb bike that will be rolling 320 gram 700x38 slicks.

Caliper

No, no, it's only a rubber/air interactance thing. Aluminum only provides this if the tube walls are very thin, otherwise the air is too confined and doesn't provide the correct interactrance.

Campag4life

If you ride Chip seal for a fair amount of your ride, absolutely, bigger is better. In fact on rough road surfaces, chipseal, gravel, rougher single track, I want a flatbar bike....650 or 29er's racing hardtail which I can ride longer and faster on the rough stuff compared to a roadbike. I only like a dropbar on the smooth stuff...or close to smooth. My opinion and others vary on this subject.
Cost no object:

rgconner

He didn't say you said it was faster, you said there not any (emphasis yours) loss of efficiency, and he pointed out that is not physically possible.

Which is true. I would argue for our kind of riding the losses are probably negligible, but they are there, regardless if it is .5% or 5% loss.

Myosmith

I've posted before, that IMHO, comfort and confidence are very important to overall speed under actual road conditions. When I started back in cycling, 23 mm or narrower tires pumped up like rocks were all the rage. I found them skittish and an absolute horror when there was sand or gravel on the road. They also made for sore and tired hands and backside. I switched to 25mm tires and noted some improvement and actually shaved a bit off my times as I was more confident in corners and on less than perfect road surfaces. I also didn't feel as numb and fatigued after long rides.

I now have a vintage cro-mo Trek 730 frameset upgraded to 105 components and run 32mm tires on it for recreation and light touring. As far as comfort on long rides on varied road surfaces, the bigger tires and relaxed frame geometry kick ass. My road bike is modern cro-mo still with 25mm tires. It's also quite comfortable but not as comfortable as the 730 after 6+ hours in the saddle. Surprisingly, the 730 isn't all that much slower, only losing an average of about 1 mph over 100 miles on the same routes.