"Steel has been around a long time. It's probably the most researched, well known, and the most used material in just about every industry. It's the most tuneable, in the sense that if you want to tune a frame the way someone tunes a piano, you have a really great selection of tubes that you can select from." Steel is also generally the most affordable of the materials listed here.

"Aluminium is an interesting material. You can't really let it flex, because the more it gets to bend the quicker it reaches the end of its life. That's why you see a lot of aluminium frames today that have very large diameter tubing. That's to limit the flexing that happens as you ride the bike."