Here at Tanglefoot, there was never any question about what kind of material our bike frames would be made out of. It had to be steel. Steel is still the summum bonum frame material. It has more development behind it than any other material. And no other material can ever catch up, because steel has about a 4000 year head start. The very first bikes that we would recognize as bikes were steel. They tried iron, but it was too brittle, despite being appealingly castable. We knew the bikes had to be steel because steel is repairable. It can be ridden when damaged. Steel is the only material bikes are made of that can be repeatedly dented whilst still retaining structural integrity. You want your bike to suffer dents well. Accidents happen, bikes fall over, get scratched, get wrecked. Steel can be welded when dirty, or overheated to a large degree and still hold up. Don’t think that those are bad things: the ability for a material to hold together after being mishandled is a good thing. Overheating happens. Dirt happens. Even the most obsessive wordmonger makes a typo occasionally. Steel can handle a typo. A mistake in the fabrication of a Ti frame means the welded joint will have a severely shortened life span.