"cheap" versus "high-end" is not as clear a distinction as it seems. In fairness, it depends what you're looking for. Carbon Fiber is lighter, ok, so call that

"cheap" versus "high-end" is not as clear a distinction as it seems. In fairness, it depends what you're looking for. Carbon Fiber is lighter, ok, so call that the high-end one. But in reality, their durability is lousy -- in addition to being mostly-ruined by a crash, they do deteriorate over time. I know this first-hand as a colleague repairs carbon fiber frames [imagine lots of epoxy and carbon wraps], so I see a huge gamut of failures. Most of the frames coming in are probably 2-8 years old? Will be interesting to see how they 'wear' in the 10-20+ timeframe. This, in comparison to steel frames, which have fantastic crash resistance (one of my frame's toptube has a huge dent in in for years no problem, and, another friend, a racer, finished a multi-day stage race with the headtube angle crunched-in after rear-ending a car early in the race). Also, provided they're rust-proof'd the frames last decades and can be repaired, modified. I've been to ?a? ?the? Giant factory in Taiwan seeing them manufacture steel frames -- it was amazingly simple and primitive and mass-scale factory way out from Taipei, in the countryside. I suppose another win for carbon is it enables lots of weird/cool frame shapes. There are shaped steel and aluminum tubes, but nothing like the options in carbon. I think the weight advantage of carbon is lower than you'd expect -- high-end cromoly-steel frames are made from suprisingly thin tubing that is very sound. Anyway, I am clearly a fan of steel frames and more randonneur-style riding. If I was into triathlons or time trials, I'd probably reply differently. And I also increasingly dislike throwaway culture and I don't believe these carbon frames hold up in the longterm.