The increase in temperature at the surface of a metal during absorption of optical energy is a dynamic, multistep process. High-time-resolution, ultrafast measurements of thermal and elastic transients have proven to be useful for investigating the structure, thermophysical properties, and elastic properties of thin films [Paddock and Eesley, J. Appl. Phys. 60, 285–290 (1986)]. During ultrafast optical excitation of metals, the rapid deposition of energy causes the absorbing electrons to enter a superheated state, dispersing beyond the excitation volume before energy is deposited to the lattice with the rate of energy transfer between electrons and phonons being described using the electron–phonon coupling parameter. Typically, ultrafast reflectivity measurements taken immediately after excitation can be modeled using a completely thermal analysis if reduced values for the electron–phonon coupling parameter are used. These reduced values often vary substantially [Gusev and Wright, Phys. Rev. B 57, 2878–2888 (1998)] from accepted values that are experimentally determined from measurements using the cooling rate of superheated electrons. By including elastic contributions to the modeled signal at all times, agreement with measured signals can be obtained for short and long times using values for materials parameters that are in agreement with those obtained from other techniques.