Titanium Bikes - SA market

[Eddie Stafford]

Almost finished building my titanium GT Xizang 29er, 1 x 10.  Just under 10.4 kg with pedals and sealant.  Waiting for the XTR crank and new stem to arrive and will then complete.

 

 

[Patensie]

Hottest Ti bike, ever.

 

 

My brother's from the same company with USE Sub fork.

[TheJ]

My brother's from the same company with USE Sub fork.

 

I chatted with their sales rep for weeks, deciding on a frame. EVERY SINGLE one I liked, I checked out and found that the linkages would never work. Unworkable designs. Or, the one I really liked needed an adapter to mount the shock... and they couldn't tell me what it looked like or where to get one. I cancelled all plans to buy from them. Their latest designs look a bit better.

[Paul Ruinaard]

I lust after the Lynskey's. I often go on to their site and build an ultimate machine. I had a 26er from them i built in to a single speed but the frame was too small and I had too many bikes.

 

Titanium is really cool. Its kind of like the antithesis of the Chinese Carbon approach

[IH8MUD]

Damn, all this talk and pics of Titanium frames is putting fear of  . . . into my bank account .

[FBSP]

The best material I have ever ridden and think will be the next regarded material for riders when they are not racers and realise carbon is a rip off for what you get.

[BaGearA]

What does that chart mean...is the high bad or good

 

Cause steel is DEFINITELY not stiffer than carbon????

 

Anyhow here is my input or yea ol frame material question

 

Carbon 

lightest

stiffest

has compliance ito comfort

can be molded into weird and wonderfull shapes

BUT

fails catastrophically 

expensive 

 

Alu

light enough

can be molded into weird and wonderfull shapes

cheap as chips

BUT

Not compliant

Difficult if not impossible to repair

want factor is low

 

Steel

Strong

Very compliant(Steel is real and all that)

Can be repaired

Want factor is high

BUT

Heavy

Not cheap

Might be too flexy for out and out racing snakes

Cannot be molded into weird and wonderfulls

 

Titanium

Strongest

Stiffer than steel yet stays compliant

Scratch proof

BUT

Expensive

Hard to shape

Hard to repair(if you ever need to)

 

Best is relative

 

Best based on a budget : Alu

Best based on "strength" and longevity : Titanium 

Best for racing : Carbon

With thru axles, stiff wheels and boost spacing A 29 steel bike can be bloody fast and comfortable.

 

Weight is gong to be an issue for some but there were a lot of people riding the munga on steel hardtails.

[Heel Drop]

Hi Walkerr

I will bring your question to Skyde's attention for them to answer. I am currently working with them on pricing as we have suggested certain spec for our market.

Keep checking here for detail indue course.

Cheers.

so did you guys bring these in at all? Love Ti bikes

[buffalosoldier]

what ever came of this venture? the adventure TI market is growing at pace at the moment

[100Tours]

I would buy a Ti bike for the same reason I wear a Ti wedding ring. Its something timeless, durable, strong, warm and beautiful. Its a bike for life. There is something fantastic about a material that doesn't corrode, can take a few knocks and get back up again and looks ice cold cool. Blue steel has nothing on Ti, Carbon is the junk food of bikes - throwaway culture, aluminum is just plain utilitarian and boring. 

 

I have finally decided what I am going to spend a nice little  bonus which is coming my way. Sure its a bit indulgent, a bit lavish, a bit excessive, but life is short, whats wrong with riding a dream bike? 

 

I love my Ti bike, but as a wedding ring that's just a bad idea, especially if you do any tool work. If you have a gold or platinum ring they will cut the ring off you in an accident. if you have a Ti ring they have to cut off your finger. The ring will still look nice though.

[dirtypot]

I love my Ti bike, but as a wedding ring that's just a bad idea, especially if you do any tool work. If you have a gold or platinum ring they will cut the ring off you in an accident. if you have a Ti ring they have to cut off your finger. The ring will still look nice though.

 

I had a Ti wedding ring initially, but it got really scratched and damaged, especially when I smashed it into and dragged it down the road and a fun OTB - it got really damaged.  I switched to a tungsten ring and it's been great!  Not a single mark on it after many years. 

[m-squared]

I love my Ti bikes.  I would not sell them for the world!

[Simon Kolin]

I love my Ti bike, but as a wedding ring that's just a bad idea, especially if you do any tool work. If you have a gold or platinum ring they will cut the ring off you in an accident. if you have a Ti ring they have to cut off your finger. The ring will still look nice though.

That’s not factually correct. Jewelry grade Ti is softer than Aircraft grade and a ring cutter can work depending on the thickness. It will be more difficult to remove than gold or platinum, but there is absolutely no reason to suggest any sort of digit amputation.

[Knersboy]

Metal properties are interesting and people often confuse them. For bikes I suppose there are four that really count, tensile strength (how strong) ,Young’s modules (how stiff), density (how heavy) and then fatigue property (how durable).

 

Tensile strength titanium alloys win, steel second and aluminum last.

 

Density, alu alloys are the lowest followed by titanium

and then steel.

 

Young’s modulus, Steel is by far the stiffest, followed by titanium alloys and then alu alloys.

 

The fatigue properties are interesting because steel and titanium have a fatigue threshold. In other words you can subject them to infinite cycles at a force lower than their fatigue threshold and they won’t fatigue. Alu on the other hand doesn’t so every little force fatigues it.

 

Then remember that tensile strength and Young’s modulus are expressed in pressure units, so force per area, so the geometry of the tubes (wall thickness and shape) have a major effect. This is why a thin tube classic steel frame is more flexy than a boxy tubed alu frame despite it having a much higher Young’s modulus.

[Nakoota]

That’s not factually correct. Jewelry grade Ti is softer than Aircraft grade and a ring cutter can work depending on the thickness. It will be more difficult to remove than gold or platinum, but there is absolutely no reason to suggest any sort of digit amputation.

 

Correct. I crashed last year and broke my shoulder only to realise 24 hours later (at home waiting for surgery on the Monday) that I'd also crushed my ring finger between the bards, brake lever and road.

 

It took the over an hour with the jewellery cutter to get the ring off my finger which had swollen to two times the size, but they did get through it... eventually. My finger has never been the same

[DJR]

My wife doesn't wear her wedding ring............for hygiene reasons, because her work requires her to scrub her hands plenty times a day. Well, now I have a good excuse to take my own wedding ring off as well.........just for safety in case of another bike crash........which I have a pretty appalling record of. I suppose I'm lucky to still have a ring finger at all!