My only experience with Ti is with the Ti Pompino. I've got a few other Pompinos to compare it to.

For a start it feels lighter – haven't weighed it yet, but the pick it up test is fairly obvious. The ride is really good. I have ridden it around the 'Puffer track and the bike gave me the confidence to try stuff I wouldn't normally do on a skinny tyre. It felt planted on the View Rock descent for example – no need to indulge in the heavy braking that the full sus kiddies do there.

How much that is due to it being Ti or that it was built by Lynskey I don't know.

not a passing fad, but too expensive for my wallet to toy with.
that said in the future when i have totally fine tuned the geometry of my hardtail mtb and road/tourer/commuter i would love both to be Ti.

still the magazines keeps changing what im supposed to need in a bike

I've had my ti bike for a few years now and i love it. I find the bike quite bouncy which makes riding easier for me, when I ride a steel bike now it hurts!

mema – what do you ride ?

Ti Pompino

i have never heard of such a thing! more info/pics please!

id love a ti singular peregrine should such a beast ever be made 🙂

TLR- this is the embarrassing part… I don't know! The frame was bought off ebay, supposedly a custom build and I can't work out the manufacturer! (and I have a single-speed handjob too). Can't post pics so can't even get help off here!

blimey, found one… but wish i hadn't!

lovely!

Having such fun on my MLC and she's a bike for life 🙂

Love my Litespeed 8)

I like the look of this off the bay at £850, shame its not disc only, oh and ive never heard of them!!

Anyone heard any more news on the Ti XC from On One?

I love Ti so much I'm going to try and find a SS road frame, ditch the nice but heavy Lemond Filmore. Anyone know the options? Pompino looks good, Condor do one but costs about £1600 so no chance.

Flatboy, it looks better now. Carbon fork, Ti seattube, and Ti Chris King headset, but it deserves all that. Next up is some bling wheels 😆

oooohhhh you bastard! want to sell it? 🙂

and yeah, agreed on it deserving the best. fair play, even a CK ti headset!

with all that on it, though, i would never let it out of my sight so it wouldn't be much of a replacement for my pomp. 🙂

It feels so good when you cleaned your Ti bike and it comes up as spangly(?) as the day you bought it. While your carbon bike of a lesser age is scratched like you've cleaned it with a sponge full of grit after a season.

theflatboy – would post a picture of Merlin but don't know how (incomptent).

Nah, never sell it. Like it too much.

of course. you got a more recent pic, then?

I like the colours that Ti has when it sits in the sun.

hello

my 2ps worth – i owned a beautiful ti bike – a certain bespoke brand – i got it much cheaper than retail – it broke – they fixed it no bother under warranty – so i like that – ti isnt indestructible – it can dent – mine was well dented from 5 years abuse in lakes / peaks / somerset etc but so are all my previous frames…

Would i get another at full price – not on my poxy salary at the present – if money no object then yes – its light / comfy ( like my steel bikes to be honest ) – maintenance re finish is dead easy – polishes up lovely = wont corrode or fade like paint.

Ridden steel / alloy frames in the past – in comparison Ti rides nice – its light and i suppose less snappy under load than ally but I think its ace… Not had much experience of carbon – not that interested – i like metal…

In summary – its a great material but is it worth the premium – debateable – would say its nice but have ridden a lot of nice and cheaper frames – but it should last longer……….

its a law of diminishing returns… plus you hate yourself when you whang it whereas a cheaper frame it doesnt worry you so much… a lot of ti nay sayers prob would love to have a go / own one and find out !

paul

mt i only just figured it out

– upload it to flickr or some other photo hosting site
– right click on the picture, click Properties
– copy the address
– come back here, click URL
– paste the address into the box that appears
– hit ok, then post, you're good

mcboo – come Monday I'll try to make that work.

make sure you do 🙂

I went for carbon over Ti, but really have to question if my carbon frame will be around in 15 years, and still be looking as good like a Titanium one would.

I think the "recent fad" for Ti is as a result of the Chinese frames being cheaper and therefore becoming main stream.
To ask if it's here to stay is silly, as is the point of why would you want a bike for life. The early bikes will always go through evolutions re geometry and discs etc, but they've been pretty sorted for a good few years now.
I am very fortunate to own a Merlin XLM, the Rob Vandermark built one. It's fine with a Talas fork from anywhere between 80-130mm travel, it's disk only, and runs a 1.125 headset, so what's to change??
I ride it far more than my other bikes, mainly in the Peak and N Wales. It's probably 4-5 years old now, and still looks brand new. If it does ever break, which I doubt, then it has the back up of a full lifetime warranty just like the Moots eg back up the page.
I have some nice bikes (fortunately) but if I could keep only one, it would be the Merlin.

Dave

Had my Global for nearly 7 years so no not a passing fad

It's not a fad. Marin, Kona and Orange all featured Ti bikes in their range 10-15 years ago (Kona Hei Hei anyone?). The recent resurgence is more to do with cheaper manufacturing costs in China IMHO. (Lynskys apart)

FWIW I have a Moots Hardtail. I cannot honestly say that it rides any better than the steel(Tange) frame it replaced though.

Not sure if I read it 'right' but didn't the issue 51 review of the Whyte suggest that if a frame is well designed and built it doesn't really matter from which metal it is made ??????

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theflatboy and mcboo – is this right?

no it's not you twerp.

Yes, Hilldodger. I thought exactly the same. They seemed to be struggling to justify the extra cost benefit in the Whyte Ti 19, and as far as the Van Nicholas went it was a case of "Titanium bike with crap geometry = crap bike"

Well the Ti review has, strangely enough, put me off buying a Ti bike 😕 and go and have a good long look at a Whyte19 in old fashioned aloominum

if at first you don't succeed try again, if then you don't get it right own up to being usless and wait for further advice.

f..k it!

mt, you have to put the url for the image in the following format, without all the spaces:

[ img ] http://www.xxx.jpg. [ / img ]

i could do it for you, but you must learn!

Love my 2 Ti frames (cross bike & ti456). Both are light enough and comfortable – the cross bike makes a great lightweight touring stead and winter roadie too. I ride it with mates on hard tails over not too testing stuff (south downs ways type riding) and I'm sure I get off better nick than I would have done on a alu framed cross bike. The ti456 needs no introduction.

I'd like a ti road frame now I don't road race. The carbon frame is super stiff for racing but quite punishing for long sportive type rides on questionable roads. The one bike I don't get is a Ti Pompino. Don't get me wrong, I loved my pomp (it now a flat bar gentlemans cruiser for getting the paper and mincing around the campus at work) but as a fixed you are never going to get proper downhill road speeds and climbing is always going to be compromised by the lack of gears that a few hundred grams of weight saving is not going to make a huge difference to. A Pomp is meant to be the grunt bike that is built up tough & cheap to take commute or winter training abuse, with slightly bigger tyres when out and out performance is not an issue. It's the bike you wash once a year on its birthday if it's lucky! Steel has to be the perfect material.

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no Im not getting it right so I'll get some work done instead.

mt do [ img ] http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3467/3764538735_da8921f677_m.jpg [ / img ]

Without all the spaces.

I'd hesitate to say ti was mainstream still, I think it's just a niche that's getting bigger and more affordable.

Always aspired to a ti bike back in the day, but even though I could afford one now I just don't feel the urge.

Maybe when/if my steel hardtail breaks.

>> Not a fad.
>> Not mainstream.

Oh, everyone has said that already?
Ti can be built into great frames, but the great Ti frames end up too expensive for the likes of me.
No one needs Ti, but if you're rich they're always there to tempt you! = :87)
It's good that Ti is no longer necessarily short for "race bike" and is being used to make good modern trail bikes, not that you can't have a bike that is both a race bike and trail bike but you know what I mean.

Oh, looking at that Pompi reminded me, the only bike of mine I wish was Ti is my old commuting bike, despite it being the bike that needs to be the cheapest to ward of magpies. It's my only steel bike that gets constantly scruffed up and eaten by road salt, my mountain bikes are fine.

What spaces? Sorry to be thick.