The Saber use to have a carbon seat stay (03?) whereas the current version is back to a titanium seat stays. Does anyone know if there is a reason for the switch back to metal? Is there an inherent problem with a carbon seat stay? I have two litespeeds now, both with titanium seat stays and am very happy with them, but was thinking about picking up an 03 Saber. Anyone have any insight??
thanks
I’ve got an '04 Sabre with the carbon stays and have had no problems. A very comfortable and fast ride. I have no idea why they went back to full Ti.
Another '04 Saber rider here, no problems and I find the ride very nice.
They want back to full ti because the carbon stays didn’t really do anything. They weren’t better (or worse). They were just the gimic that you needed at that time to sell bikes. Of course, they came about as, supposedly, a way to make aluminum less harsh, so I never understood why they put them on a ti bike, where nobody ever complained about ride quality. I think, after a year, Litespeed realized they didn’t know why they did it either. Kind of similar to integrated headsets. You didn’t get any net gain in terms of how low you could make the stack by making an integrated titanium headtube, so Litespeed went back to standard headsets. There wasn’t (and isn’t) anything wrong with the '03 Saber. It just had some features that sort of didn’t make sense, since they didn’t make the bike any better. People know Litespeed as a titanium company, so I think that there was some negative feedback on the carbon stays. You also have to be marginally more careful packing a bike with carbon stays, whereas a full ti bike can (and has) withstood a hurricane. 
I heard they went back to all Ti to reduce production cost. I have an 05 Ultimate with carbon seat stays and I love the ride, however I’m not sure the carbon makes any difference. I have had no problems with the seat stays, but for what it’s worth, my next Litespeed frame will be all Ti.
Thank you for the insight. I guess the biggest concern I had was in regards to the durability of the carbon stays vs. titanium and you touched on that perfectly. My current rides both have titanium stays and I was riding one of them when I was t-boned by a car. I am pretty sure the carbon statys would have been sacraficed but I did not have any problems with the full titanium other than a few scratches. If there is no realized improvement in the ride quality and an increase in the likelyhood that something could fail, I guess I will stick to the full Ti frame.
As for the integrated headsets… i never really like them anyway.