After a lightweight 29er build and been looking at s/h titanium and scandium frames (Niner Air 9 with the Easton scandium tubes). I have a scandium cx bike (Kona Major Jake) and love it – very light and a real joy to ride. I seem to read of a quite few fails on ti frames. Which would people go for. Not a fan of carbon and swanky light steel would be out of my price range.

Niner do make great riding products but are costly, still you get what you pay for!

I went for a Litespeed as my 29er and single speeded it. I’m a big guy and it’s yet to have proper ‘core mileage put it on it but very much doubt it will fail on me.
The tubes are huage and the weld areas large and being a Litespeed should be good for ages.
A lot of hate for Litespeed frames on here or a couple of members experience and hearsay.
But it goes for most manufacturers of frames tbh.

Personally I’d go for the Air 9 scandium and have done with it.
Matched with a pair of RDO Niner forks would be a killer combo if you have the skills and trails to hone speed on it.

Scandium tubes are pretty thin so probably less damage tolerant than ti – I’ve seen plenty of broken frames in all materials, a lot comes down to the quality of design and manufacture. Some of the worst built frames I’ve seen are from big brands in an attempt to cut corners i.e. thick plate welded to thin tubes.

I reckon Ti has the largest failure rate of any material (due to oxygen contamination during welding), but I think the Litespeed hate came from the original Lynskey brothers Litespeed, as Lynskey seem to have kept up that bad rep…

Scandium had a rep for being fragile, enforced by the limited warranties offered (dunno about the Jake but their XC HT frame had a 2yr warranty?).

So in short I’d choose the frame I liked and the material would be a minor concern (below condition given you’re looking at used).

FWIW Lynskey founded Litespeed in the 80s and then sold it to ABG – the ‘hate’ is from when ABG decided to no longer honour lifetime warranties retrospectively, leaving lots of pi$$ed-off folks with broken frames. Some of the worst designed and built frames were from that era, where volume went up and quality went the other way – a bit like Zipp, too many people believe their hype.

I thought Litespeed basically was ABG – with an investor they bought Merlin (and Tomac and others?) and moved Merlin lock stock and barrel to Tennessee, hence all the other subsequent spin-off companies from builders who stayed in the North East? Not disagreeing that quality and back-up didn’t change for the worse with the formation of ABG, just dusting off distant memories.

I assume the Lynskey brothers eventually sold up their stakes and went on their way, only for quite a lot of Lynskey-branded or built frames to suffer quality issues.

I had a ’96 (Pre-ABG) Obed BITD where everything that could be matching brushed Ti was (DEAN post, Titec bar and stem etc). Sold it relatively recently to a guy I met in Swinley at a time when I couldn’t ride HTs due to a bad back 🙁

had a Kona scandium, it failed, the distributer was NFI and the shop hopeless

chopped it up and was less than impressed with tube thickness, shouldn’t be on an mtb

Quality titanium every time, maybe slightly heavier but if it’s well made it’s a bike for life like no other

I had one of the original Scandium Scandals fro On-one which is still going strong with its new owner 9-10 years down the line so have no negative feelings about scandi

What would you call quality titanium – I see some like the Sonda and have to wonder.

I’m thinking of selling my medium sync ti frame, don’t know why really apart from raising some money!!!!
If of interest email me at jonathantraverse@hotmail.co.uk

We have had three Ti frames fail. One was my Litespeed road bike which was repaired under waranty, one was am Airbourne (now Van Nicolas) which was replace under waranty and a Bontrager which Trek replaced. The only other frame that we have broken was my Kona Unit which failed after 6 years of daily commuting. I would question if Ti is a reliable frame building materialin the way it is used.
The waranty on most scandium frames is quite short, so what about a lightish aluminium frame and accept a short frame life of a carbon frame?

Bloody ‘ell jonnyrockymountain, can we just have one topic where you’re not selling something!!

Let me guess, you’re a trader?

Kinesis and ‘quality’ not normally words to go into the same sentence.

Nipper99 – Member
What would you call quality titanium – I see some like the Sonda and have to wonder.

I’d trust the Alpkit bike.
I’ve a Jones 3d spaceframe, plus 3 Travers bikes titanium’s with another one on route.