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18" here
I've decided to win the Lynskey competition in the magazine this issue, so none of this applies to me.
[i]Anyone who says its "borderline racist" to suggest that Chinese manufactured goods are of lower quality explain why there have been a number of high profile recalls over the year[/i]
That was me.
As I opened... I'm not arguing that there isn't junk out there, but it's not exclusively made by yellow-skinned people for the far east. Product quality relates to the management of the factory where it's made - whether it's British, American or Chinese. [oh dear, I'm turning into RideBoy]
Most businesses start out with loss-leaders and then to turn them into cash-cows.
I thought xacd made van nics (and previously airbornes frames?)
Im sure I saw a thread to this affect a couple of years ago where Porter from xacd claimed this to be the case?
Surely approaching xacd or hi light direct would be cheaper???
but either way £599 is still cheap as chips if that is polished.
its only about £150 different if you go to xacd direct, and a bit of a grey area about importation /warranty too.
in a nutshell, Chinese factories win contacts by knocking something out that is great quality for the price but doesn't make any profit and then they gradually cut quality in order to make the contract profitable.
and you think its just Chinese factories that do this? when I used to work in manufacturing we had the monthly game of what have the removed to increase profits, and this was 7 years ago and this was with bits made from all around the world including the US.
some of the guys (foreign) ride the locally produced Hi Light Bikes.
Frames come in at a descent price, and they are very nice.
Website is here http://www.ti-bicycle.com/gywm/gywm-e.htm
Let me know if your interested, I can help you out as they are manufactured on my doorstep (Beijing)
suntingwang - those mtb frames look very XC-specific though? What do they sell for? Problem is (I know Druidh went down this route)- its gold having someone like Planet etc there for customer service and backup etc.
Tim - I think Airbornes were made by Hi-Light, Hi-Light still do a 'softtail' rear end with the section of plate on the seat stays like Airbourne used to offer.
Setavento used XACD for sure, but the Van Nic's look more like they use Hi-Light (XACD road frames tend to use bendy seat stays for one)... Sabbath look like they use XACD, for the road frames at least.
Agreed though if Planet X can knock 'em out for under £700 they should be on to a winner. The frame I recently ordered direct was about £500 all in, about £100 more than last year due to the $/£ business!
sure, you can't beat having a local person there for you when something goes wrong.
I'll call them tomorrow and let you know (it's 9.18pm here now)
yeah, I heard that they made Airbornes as well....
I keep meaning to take a trip around the factory... see what I can do
Dave - If you don’t think there would be any real difference in overall quality than say the aesthetic look of the welds for a “first delivery pre-order price of 599” I would bite you arm off for one. I’d VERY happily get one! Surely the biggest factors in this cheapness is the exchange rate labour costs.
I’m signed up to all the email newsletters and have been waiting for a 29er Scandal sized 21in for ages now. And then you go and say Ti 29er fram for £599.
Some of the more respected brands building Ti frames seem to have had a few problems in the past couple of years - doesn't fill you with a huge amount of confidence:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12538098&highlight=cardboard
I was asked, some time ago, what the welding on the Hi-Light frames was like and took/posted a few pics. I'm no metallurgist, and my boyfriend isn't an aero engineer, but I can't see anything wrong with these?*
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* although the focus on that last pic is pants
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Dekerf-style (nice)
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to be fair, druid, while those look reasonable, in comparison those on my merlin look like the saliva of titanium angels licked on with their little tongues. i'll take a pic this evening if you like.
Harry_the_Spider, that's Japanese not Chinese.
Whatever.
Harry_the_Spider - MemberWhatever.
that's the spirit! 😆
Rudeboy:
I sat through a two day conference at the national welding institute where the topic of russian ti came up.
It's not proaganda, it's fact.
Like all materials, all ti is not created equally.
all tis are equal but some are more equal than others. fitting, when talking of russian ti.
If the Chinese are as honest about the quality of their Ti as they are about the quality of their steel in some of the injection moulds I've seen, I'd be very careful. As someone said earlier in the thread - you'd need a metallurgist to check it. I emphasise 'some'. Not all use inferior materials, obviously. There have also been cases of customers shipping out the correct spec german or swedish steel and the mould coming back made of something else. Mind you, as long as the drawings are agreed beforehand, the quality of the workmanship should be OK and we're not talking aerospace standards here anyway, so it won't matter if the Ti is the best available.
i'd like a review of the comparison, but i'm a bike snob and have a Lynskey built 456.
i'd never consider a chinese factory built Ti frame.
i like the Lynskey ethos. and the warranty.
will the chinese frame be lifetime warrantied ?
oh - i break Hummers too 🙁
Just remembered something a buddy of mine who runs a bike shop in San Francisco told me about Litespeed: He said their manufacturing skills couldnt be all that bad as they were making Ti components for NASA. Now some may say "NASA huh?.." but Id rather have their endorsement than ooohh say those blokes in a shed who knocked up the Trabant..
Of course that may well just be BS!
good skills by dave@planetx he dropped the crumbs and let everyone jump in 😉 must have been getting some tips from Brant on marketing
RepacK - MemberJust remembered something a buddy of mine who runs a bike shop in San Francisco told me about Litespeed: He said their manufacturing skills couldnt be all that bad as they were making Ti components for NASA. Now some may say "NASA huh?.." but Id rather have their endorsement than ooohh say those blokes in a shed who knocked up the Trabant..
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Hardly a crumb. More like a full page advert with prices.
I'd happily drop £600 for a Ti frame.
If it breaks it can always be fixed - no worries about stuffing up the paintwork 🙂
Top grade 'pure' Ti would be far too spensive for any manufacturer to use,
It would also make a crap frame. Alloyed Ti (with Vanadium and Aluminium) is at least twice as strong as Commercially Pure Ti
Does anyone know who the Russian manufacturer that Burls use to make their titanium frames is?
This thread has given me an urge to relentlessly plug the next Hit the North, regarless of the supposed rules.
😉
February 2010 for a sprinter
July 17th 2010 for a full-fat 8 hour MTB/CX crossover enduro with rock band, mariachi artiste hiding in the woods and a licenced bar.
Anyone up for that? Yeh? YEH?
Rudeboy:I sat through a two day conference at the national welding institute
What an incredibly exciting life you lead... 😯
I went fishing & look what I caught - a druid! 😉 😈
Leave druidh alone.
His Onion bike is quite nice!
"good skills by dave@planetx he dropped the crumbs and let everyone jump in must have been getting some tips from Brant on marketing"
- Who do you think brant learnt it all from in the first place ?
Anyhow , back to OP - anyone is welcome at bikeradar live to come have a go , or just have a beer or if it not tipping down a bit of bar b q and we could be dishing out a few e-coli burgers .
Druidh you seriously need to sort the moss out 😕
Hi, I've been in-touch with the factory, they gave me an email address of a gentleman (?) in Holland who is the European dist. Check my profile for my email add and I'll email it to you.
She wouldn't quote me over the phone/email but has invited me to their offices, so I'll go on Wednesday and have a chat (on my way to Laoshan Olympic MTB course) and I'll see how much they are there.
That gentleman in Holland. Is it Marije Voskuijl?
all I know is that it's a jw@something (don't want to break to forum rules)
Ah - OK. Just thought it might have been the Van Nicholas guys as they are based in Holland.
This is great...I sign up for the singletrack forum and this is the first topic I stumble across! I am metallurgist you see (well, a Materials Scientist technically, but more metals than anything else) and I have a special interest in titanium alloys.
I can't see why Chinese Ti would be any better or worse than American or Russian Ti. The technology to cast and work Ti is pretty standard. What will make more of a difference is what specification the Ti is released to. If the American supplier is making to spec A and the Chinese to spec B then yes they will be different but if not, they're likely to be indistinguishable.
There was a comment above about Russian and Chinese Ti being worse because they have 're-used material' in. This is called revert and everybody does it. Most of the titanium available on the world market includes revert. Ti would be stupidly expensive if people didn't. If On-One aren't using revert then they're mad.
Any difference between the USA supplier and the Chinese will come in the welding and heat treatment, which are moderately complex. However, it's not so much about nationality - there are some appalling American suppliers, believe me, and excellent Chinese ones, and vice versa. It's about trained welders and decent vacuum ovens, which are very gettable in either country. If the welding is accredited and the welds are x-rayed and crack tested then I'd be just as happy on a Chinese bike as an American one.
The disappointing thing to me is that we have to use Grade 9 Ti, also called 'half 6/4'. It's easy to make into tube but it's pathetically weak. With a bit more effort I reckon a Grade 5 frame is possible which is much stronger and therefore lighter...
Sorry about the essay post, you can tell I enjoy my job working with these alloys (and Aluminium! I understand Al too if anyone wants to start a thread about that!)
Cheers,
Jon
Although to be fair if they're trying not to make it TOO flexy then maybe thinner tubing is not desirable so why bother having a stronger alloy, in which case fair enough.
Jon
I've posted this previously but it seemsrelevant to re-post it here:-
According to Mark Lynskey Ti is Ti:-
"As to the raw materials; did you know that everybody's starter materials (tube hollows) come from either Russia or China. Yes that includes Sandvick, Haynes, Wolverine, and Reynolds. Yes the tubes that these companies create using Chinese and Russian raw materials do in fact go to aerospace/defense use as well as bicycle frames (including ours). "
Read the whole comment here.
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49167
jw@..... sounds a lot like the Van Nich guy (or more specifically, the airborne guy who sorted me out a few yrs ago)
apparently it IS the Van Nich guy (someone has emailed them, and let me know the reply)