Fancy a Surly Pacer, Salsa Casseroll or one of those fancy Italian Guelicotti(?)frames as a wee change to my Planet x superlight. Has anybody any experience of these? Does steel really feel more complient over a commute? Cheers.

I’ve recently bought a second hand OCR 2 and I just can’t get comfy on it (part of it is a size issue) but after riding my old Charlton steel commuter this morning I really noticed the comfort different between steel and alu. Steel has got a real spring to it and certainly made me smile again riding it.

Steel frames can be very comfortable…this applies to lighter ones rather than heavier ones though.

conversely my spesh langster is more comfortable than my pompino, or at least was until i fitted wider tyres to the pomp, run at lower pressure, and even then it’s a pretty close run thing. some bikes are stiffer than others by design. some are made to be responsive or strong with all other factors put to the background, others have designs that understand that we’re not all going balls-out at all costs. material is secondary IMHO.