Best mate is looking to treat himself to a Ti road frame for his 50th and is looking for ideas of who to get it from.

I know moots and Lynskey are well regarded but he’d rather buy a British brand frame if poss. Who’s worth looking at? I don’t think he’s too worried about whether it’s custom made for him or not and it doesn’t need to be a race frame although I don’t think he wants it to goo off road. Ideally. He’s keen on calliper not discs

Go!

Kinesis (british brand) Granfrodo or Tripster, Shand, Sabbath September.

Edit.. maybe not kinesis if doesnt want discs.

British brand or British made?

Prestige bikes?

Homepage

Reilly Cycleworks, Enigma?

Off-road? Go for discs

No I think road only with calipers – he prefers the look. I think just British brand not necessarily British made

Thanks so far

The older Granfondos don’t have discs, if they still have any.

A Shand would also be lovely!

I have nothing but praise for Enigma. Jim is great to deal with

The new Shand with the carbon fork looks lovely, didn’t realise they did titanium too. I’m going to end up very jealous!

Dare i say it, but planet x have two new Ti frames (at least two) coming out soon. If British names appeal, they’re the Hurricane and Spitfire.

the old PX ones were made by Lynskey; mine was made by Serotta (who are now #22 bicycles). I’ve nothing but praise for mine; a sample, identical to a Great Divide. PX won’t say where the new ones are made, but the Pickenflick is Chinese (not saying it’s bad off course).

There’s also Burls. Complete custom, for about a grand.

Check out Fatbirds in Hunstanton. Best place to buy Ti.

Spa Cycles have Ti.

Brant at Pact Bikes can have anything you want made up and will provide excellent advice on sizing, geometry, design.

What about stainless steel? Like a Genesis Volare.

For my money Dan, Titchmarsh Cycles, building is the best Ti in the UK at them moment. The Road bike he had at Bespoked was amazing.

Burls and Enigma would be my choices. Jason Burls builds steel but outsources his Ti from Russia, I believe. Both know what makes a good frame (geometry not material).

I’d also look at 953 stainless steel too, there isn’t much to separate them now – other than waiting time!

I bought my Merlin from Fatbirds. They know Ti and have done for years.

There’s a titanium road and mtb builder called quoroz who do nicely subtle sarin finished ti frames, stems and bars/posts.

They look tasty.

Agree with shaggy, if your mate wants something special I’d be having a word with Dan.

Got to be Sussex based Enigma. Been to a few of there open days and watched Mark Reilly at work, love the Ego Mtb. Or a Reilly.

Reilly Cycleworks

Looked at Baldwin a while back, nice frames.

Kinesis do a V3 Granfondo that is caliper brake and internal cabling.
Current model.
I have a V1 which is fantastic.
They did a V2 which is usually discounted in a few shops.
Max

Serotta (who are now #22 bicycles)

To be pedantic, pretty sure Serotta are completely defunct. #22 employed some of the folk from Serotta who were laid off. The #22 bikes do look very nice though and not bad price wise for US made Ti with some of the Serotta pedigree, but not sure if they have a UK distributor so tax and shipping would probably eat into that.

True, serotta became Saratoga, who then became #22. But the welders and fabricators are the same.

The delights of bankruptcy and name changes.

But fatbirds do #22; £2k a frame.

Firefly, Strong, Baum.

Really you think anything British made can hold a candle up to those,

I HAD a Lynsted, I don’t have it any more.

My read of the Serotta -> Saratoga -> #22 migration is slightly different:

http://www.bicycleretailer.com/north-america/2014/03/13/saratoga-frameworks-factory-shuts-down#.Vx6qiEeSa70

http://www.bicycleretailer.com/north-america/2014/03/17/canadian-bike-brand-hires-ex-saratoga-builders-plans-new-york-factory#.Vx6rb0eSa70

So I don’t think you can really paint #22 as a Serotta under another name, but they look really nice, and a Drifter is quite tempting 🙂

My mate has had two road bikes from Enigma. Lovely frames.

well possibly; #22 aren’t claiming any heritage I agree. But some of the serotta workers went to Saratoga and some of them (welders etc, not painters) went to #22 serotta

It’s an interesting discussion but not worth derailing the thread over. The whole point was if you can find out who makes the PX new frames, you might be onto a good thing.

If you fancy non-UK then moots have what look like the nicest welds in the business.

Love quoroz frames but I hadn’t realised they now make TI.

It’s an interesting discussion but not worth derailing the thread over

Indeed – I just have a bit of an interest in the car crash as a Serotta owner. And on the basis of the quality of that bike, I’d be tempted by a #22 with Serotta originated build quality whereas if they were still made by Lynskey I’d be wielding my barge pole 🙂

But keeping it in the UK I think I’d be looking at Reilly or Titchmarsh ….

Love quoroz frames but I hadn’t realised they now make TI.

I think they only offer Ti bikes, iirc they are designed in the UK & built elsewhere. Qoroz is an independent off shoot of Aberlink, based up the road from me.

Titchmarsh

i know its not Ti – but….

😀

Heard the rumours of Lynskeys failing. Never seen evidence (apart from on t’internet of course).

My brother has two Burls – one single speed, one geared. Lovely bikes; no idea about Russian Ti though.

And that’s one point about British Ti builders – do they not just import the tubes from China (rumours of recycling abound). Any inherent weakness will be there, whether it’s welded in China or the UK.

Fair cop on simply repeating internet wisdom on Lynskey – comes down to whether you think it is a case of “no smoke without fire”, or they just make way more ti frames than anyone else so you hear about more issues.

And that’s one point about British Ti builders – do they not just import the tubes from China (rumours of recycling abound). Any inherent weakness will be there, whether it’s welded in China or the UK.

I am not sure that the source of the tubes is the biggest factor in final quality. Though I note that Reilly have been talking about working on hydroformed ti tube sets so I don’t think you can accuse them of slapping together random ti tubes of dubious origin.

My view is that getting a ti bike put together well is the most important thing, that’s what I would look at first over and above where the materials came from …

But now we’ve thoroughly derailed the thread.

Not British, but Legend has to be worth a look nevertheless – a guy I was riding with in Aus had one, absolutely beautiful bike. I was very tempted in a never (or at least not for a while) going to happen kind of way…

Added bonus of a trip to Italy as well!

If you are going to look outside the UK then a Crisp should definitely be on your watch list.

And if you are considering steel then a Talbot Frameworks is rather special.

Told you the PX frames would be out soon.

Now on the website Either Audax or Road

Designed by Mark Reilly

Built by who knows.

Having said that – they do look nice. They are also more expensive than a custom Burls.

Loads of US builders make Ti bikes. Plenty of threads here show casing their stuff. You need to be a member to view the pics though.

http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f11/

Look at some of the MTB manufacturers also.
Been looking at Travers Russ Ti and seen they did a few custom bikes including cross.
Could probably do you something in ti?
Very helpful guy to deal with.
Also Vaaru?
Max

Dang, the PX Hurricane looks a good bike