As I’m 50 next year I’m thinking about a ‘bike for life’ and looking at the custom Ti option.
What am I looking at pricewise?

anything from roughly £1,200 upwards to ‘as much as Sir wants to spend’ for the frame

it probably won’t be a ‘bike for life’ either 🙂

Do custom Ti builders generally use seamless butted tubing these days?

The older you get, the more “a bike for life” it becomes 😉

I think druid is the font of knowledge on bikes for life

Wonder how much I can tap up as presents? 😆

Full bike 3-7k depending on components etc, firefly if money no object, Reilly or enigma worth looking at. Don’t discount off the peg, kinesis and mason.

Vaaru looked very nice at the Cycle Show. Laverack were also there but I have to say something didn’t look right to me on their headtubes.

Just to add, Burls which do a custom ti for around the £1250 for frame and forks.

Cielo Rosso,who used to advertise for about £700 for a custom ti.

I know someone who had one done, so if you need more information drop me a line (email in profile) and I will find out more.

Bike for life, its depends on you I guess. I tend to get bored so everything for me is short lived. However friends of mine buy one thing and keep it forever, so for them its usually bike for life.

Forgot to add, I rather like the look of Reilly Cycleworks stuff as well

It’ll probably have to be custom as I’m not a regular size or shape for most manufacturers. I’ll be wanting mudguard/rack eyelets as well so it can be an all-weather machine, discs will be a must.

It must be nice to be able to buy such a thing off the peg 🙁

If you want rack and mudguards with discs, Reilly do some nice audax type bikes that might suit.

Travers do custom and have a slightly different take on things.

I think I’m leaning towards an Audax bike, it’s the type of riding i enjoy . Reilly, how small will they go I wonder..

Discs Si?

Aye, for an all-weather bike, my commuter/SS is caliper & scares me witless every wet morning!

http://www.spacycles.co.uk/m1b0s21p0/Bikes/Touring-Audax-and-Sportive

Burls, Reilly, all about the fifteen hundred pounds mark. Seven, Moots, Merlin, double that for custom.

A Moots would be my first choice.

But I’m your age, and the siren call of a 953 fixed road/audax bike is strong for my birthday. Mind you, so is a Jones Spaceframe!

Seven!

I’ve designed and bought quite a few custom ti frames factory direct from China – they make frames for some of the ‘brands’ listed above and you’ll find a couple of mine on Spanner Bikes Been designing frames and buying direct for over 14 years for myself and friends – longer than many ‘UK’ producers – PM me if you want more details. You pay in US$ so obviously the exchange rate isn’t moving in your favour – but it’s the same for everyone. They all come with warranty but not one of the frames has broken – unlike some of the premium brand makes friends have bought! 50th present to myself is featured in April 2014 – I’ve also done road, CX and MTB frames.

THere’s probably not much choice for a UK built Ti frame. There seems to be lots of US builders that build a nice looking Ti frame, although the value of the £ at the moment probably means they’ll be dear.

Italian

Steel is probably a better bet if you want to stick racks on it and load it up though…..

Depending on sizing, it might worth looking at a Sabbath September AR-1. Discs, takes racks / guards, and is a lovely ride.

Other builds are available….

Even the ‘stock’ Enigmas are made in the far east – the reality is that if you’re a skilled titanium welder in the UK then you’ll earn more more money making bits for aircraft and chemical industries. Apart from the likes of Moots, Eriksen, Dean, Passoni and probably a handful of boutique builders, then you’re down to mass-producers like Litespeed or Lynskey or the many factories in Taiwan or Xiamen. The Pilot bike that ST was getting all lyrical about this week was from the same factory I’ve used.

US – Mosaic, Firefly, moots & Seven are doing great road stuff.
Euro – Mawis & Wittson really know their ti
UK – Baldwin is specialising in ti only and look nicely put together. However, Dan Titchmarsh is now doing ti and I’ve had a bit of time with his Bespoked show (among things I work on running the show) road bike and the finish was incredible.

Frame and fork for Ti seem to start at £1500ish off the shelf so I would guess custom would be double that ?

number 22 cycles are the old serotta and saratoga frameworks. they’re doing some lovely stuff, but it’s around $2400 a frameset, and with the exchange rate tanking…. 😯

but if you’re near hunstanton pop along to fatbirds. largest titanium shop in europe apparently.

Would recommend Burls. Justin Burl does the design and then the frames are made in Russia. I got a titanium disc only di2 road frame custom made and he was very knowledgeable, quick to respond to my questions and the price was good (relative to the alternatives). It was a bonkers gift for my wife, but I’d get another in a shot if I could afford it!

I would personally ask someone like dovebiker nicely to help me out and buy direct from China.

I approached the chinese manufacturers with what I thought I wanted, and got some great prices. However there is a massive number of choices to make and little details, the manufacturers don’t really guide you through them and sometime behave a little erratically when pestered with questions.

Ideally you would point at one of their efforts (ideally hook up with someone who bought one and try it) and say “make one like that” but with your preferred angles. They are not going to help you out with choosing angles – you need to do that by copying from a bike you like / guidance from someone in the know – being able to stitch tubes together is only half the job.

I ended up finding my perfect ti frame “off the peg” in a Charge Plug 5 ti frameset ex demo. It has the angles I was looking for, discs, clearance for big tyres, full mounts, double butted tubing for a lively ride. OK the dropouts aren’t as nice as I would have specced but I knew the bike would work – and it turned up cheaper than a custom frame and with a UK warranty.

I approached the chinese manufacturers with what I thought I wanted, and got some great prices. However there is a massive number of choices to make and little details, the manufacturers don’t really guide you through them and sometime behave a little erratically when pestered with questions.
Ideally you would point at one of their efforts (ideally hook up with someone who bought one and try it) and say “make one like that” but with your preferred angles. They are not going to help you out with choosing angles – you need to do that by copying from a bike you like / guidance from someone in the know – being able to stitch tubes together is only half the job.

Brant at Pact Bikes provides a really good service in taking your requirements and dealing with the builders to deliver them. I guess you’d be looking at around £1,200 for a full custom frame.

Got to say I’m really happy with my custom build on a Genesis CDF Ti frame, it has all the braise on’s you were looking for.

I’d second the idea of getting on touch with Brant if you want a custom frame at a good vfm rate. Having had experience of trying to get the ride feel of ti right and also of the potential for error in factory communications, paying just over a grand for a frame inc his experience and the details, fittings etc available, may be preferable to going direct somewhere for £6-700.
Triton might also be worth looking up, good rep but a bit more money.

I would suggest waiting a little, for the details of the Mason Aspect Ti, essentially the Resolution in Ti with a couple of subtle changes – it’s what I’m waiting for, to upgrade from the Resolution.

I’m under the impression, that whilst ‘off the peg’, due to the expected low volume, there may be some tweaking available.

Thanks for the kind words James and Colin.
Trouser work has very much taken over resulting in me giving very slow service to our last customer.
I’m scaling back Pact.