You can do both. I ride almost everywhere by bike, but it doesn’t mean I don’t think about the environmental impact of any of my purchases (bike or otherwise).
Exactly. The problem is consumerism, not what you do with it.
Years ago my cousin was working in the R&D department of Micron (exhausts) owned by TI (Raleigh, Creda) who became TI Bainbridge. The point is from what my cousin said at the time when testing Titanium on exhausts for cars and motorcycles they just crack constantly when used on the roads. So I suppose its hard to make a frame that is as resilient as steel and as light as alloy when you ae fighting all the other factors of how brittle and susceptible to shock it can be!
On another note, Cerakote is great at protecting alloy from salt corrosion (previous reply higher up) and as its straight to substrate, no primer, single coat, no lacquer its very light.
Onzadog
I’ll stop waiting for a ti cascade then.
And don't look at this either
https://nordestcycles.com/en/product/kutxo-ti-frame
On another note, Cerakote is great at protecting alloy from salt corrosion (previous reply higher up) and as its straight to substrate, no primer, single coat, no lacquer its very light.
Any protective treatment is good as long as its applied and maintained correctly, my point was just that aluminium isn't resistant to salt corrosion like folk seem to think.
3d printing from the resin?
Didn't work out well for Cheech and Ching (depending on your take)
On another note, Cerakote is great at protecting alloy from salt corrosion (previous reply higher up) and as its straight to substrate, no primer, single coat, no lacquer its very light.
Would you put it on a painted frame or no?
Just had to retire an Alu commuter that did 10k miles - frame is actually in decent nick, minus some stripped bb threads, but I had to replace a fork due to salt water corrosion around the crown / upper legs.
Still got my Mk1 Soda - a great winter bike.
If anyone knows of a frame similar to a roadrat then I'd love to know. I've largely stopped buying aluminium bikes just because I didn't like the feel of them.
But I am tempted to get quotes for a respray of the current frame. And fill the dent. And remove the redundant front mech cable guide.
For the OP, thank you for riding your Roadrat so much. That's so good. I wish enough people wanted to buy those that we could have kept making them. Loved that bike. If it's at all possible and economically viable, I hope you fix up and paint your Cotic. We'd love to help if we can. Our painter who's doing the UK Escapade's is ace. Drop us an email.
There's a lot of comments on here taken out of context because the OP only posted an excerpt from my email. If you want to read the full thing, then its here: https://www.cotic.co.uk/news/2024/cotic-says-no-more-titanium
In there is a link to our Reduced Impact Statement, which is no longer a Sustainability Statement because I now believe stating that you can run any business sustainably is disingenuous. YMMV.
Yes, there are absolutely commercial and QC reasons we won't do ti either. They came first no doubt. We fell out with the best builder in Taiwan who made the SodaMAX and Tonic - or rather they flounced off when we had the temerity to try and share some of our production across to another manufacturer - and the couple of samples from places I'm share build for people you've heard of which are utter garbage. We could make them in the UK and get around both those things, but when asked if we'd do a ti frame last week it did make me realise that the main reason we won't do more is the environmental impact, not anything else.
Yes, moving material and products thousands of miles around the world is also bad. You might have noticed we've started making more of our frames closer to home recently. It's not a low cost option, and it won't be for every model line, but I believe it's important.
If you don't want to read the full thing, I think these paragraphs might at least give some context
"I know lots of my riding buddies who take the view that "it's just one bike, what's the harm?", but it's one of tens or hundreds of thousands of carbon or titanium bikes and parts that are made. If people didn't buy them, brands wouldn't make them. But by the same token, I think brands are being disingenuous to hide behind "it's what people want". Sometimes you have to do what you believe is right and take the lead.
We're not perfect, and I know we have a carbon fork on the Escapade, but we're trying to be better every time we make a decision. As we continue to learn and develop as a company, we will continue to work towards building the best bikes with the lowest impact."
And if you think and lying or greenwashing or you just don't give a shit, there's a million and one other brands out there pedalling carbon tat you can go and buy. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
For the OP - Old roadrats do come up dead nice if you repaint them, this is my spray.bike rattle can job (it's good that it's a crap photo, as a closeup shows up my painting skills a it) - I'm dead happy with it
Daffy
Full MemberThe scrap price of the material tells you all most of what need to know about it’s likelihood to be recycled. Steel is 20-30p per kg. Stainless is 60-90p per kg, Titanium is 610 – 650p per kg. If there was no value in recycling it, people wouldn’t be paying for it.
True, but the reality at this level is people <aren't> paying for it. I've never found anyone that'll buy or even accept free titanium, at civilian levels of scrap, which is basically all that matters for bikes. Steel and alu can and should go into the recycling stream, I suspect basically no titanium bikes get recycled once they've gone out to customers.
Which isn't a big deal because ti bikes are such a minor thing, even if there was a functional recycling stream, something like back-to-manufacturer, how many tons would it deal with per year worldwide? I reckon, after rounding, zero.
If anyone knows of a frame similar to a roadrat then I’d love to know.
I've been very happy with my cascade in flat bar mode. Its burlier than a road rat, but that suits the mix of riding I do. its rolls well enough on 2.1 mescals
So, why not a ‘Cannabike’?
Bear in mind, it’s not just about the environmental impact of welding one bike together.
The people who make the bike need to be fed and clothed sustainably. The people who cloth and feed them, themselves, need to be clothed and fed sustainably, etc.
As far as Roadrat durability is concerned, I’ve got a first gen ‘Rat from 2006 which has been ridden in all weathers and crashed a few times as well. The original forks got swapped out for the disc brake compatible version, and I put some gears on it when I moved to Sheffield.
Pre-COVID, it did thousands of miles per year and got washed when it needed maintenance; there are a couple of places where there was some surface rust, but I reckon it will be good for another 17 years at least…
Yes, there are absolutely commercial and QC reasons we won’t do ti either. They came first no doubt.
There is nothing wrong with a business decision. But don’t dress it up with green credentials as foremost. Both of my current Ti bikes I bought used. I long wanted a fixed wheel titanium frame to match my lovely steel Kona Paddy Wagon. After years looking, I found a used Enigma that for the bill.
Since the OP loves his road rat, I’d get it refurbished (like my Kona) by Argos or Rourke, or commission a Ti frame with the same geometry from Enigma. I’m afraid it won’t ride any better, but it will be a water bottle lighter. And shiny.
Mine…With off the peg titanium seatpost and stem to match
There is nothing wrong with a business decision. But don’t dress it up with green credentials as foremost.
There's nothing wrong with making an ethical decision that has equally valid business reasons either.
The way I'm reading it is even if it became economically viable tomorrow they still wouldn't, that would suggest green first and foremost.
equally valid
I included “they came first” for a reason. I have no issues with business decisions based on P&L. If the frames were still profitable, you’d be able to buy one. The carbon footprint of a titanium frame over a carbon one (given the enormous waste in carbon frame rejections) is still negligible compared with the automotive industry.
Tubing used to be a by-product of other industries anyway, probably still is. Reynolds 853 was developed for car doors not bikes.
is still negligible compared with the automotive industry
While this is true, Cotic don't make cars. Do we want all industries to do as little as possible because cars (or planes) exist?
I have no issues with business decisions based on P&L.
There are still many ways to make profitable Ti frames... low volume high priced USA or European manufacturing (build to order and get customers to pay a 50% deposit to protect cashflow and to avoid unsold stock), mid-priced Taiwan (although UK customers may be shocked at what mid-price Ti now costs, in other territories it will still sell), low priced China sourcing (quality issues, but you can overbuild and people can still get a paint free bike, just not really much lighter than a well designed and built 853 one)... all have their trade offs, all can be used in a profitable way. All have a higher environmental impact than a quality steel frame with debatable benefits. I love the look of Ti frames myself... but you can make Steel frames look pretty good as well.
Oh, I'd buy a second hand Ti frame in a heartbeat, especially one with a good rep. I think Ti still wins out over Carbon there... as a used item a Ti frame is still desirable (at least to me) in a way a used carbon one is not.
It'd be interesting to know what the environmental impact of a frame is relative to the parts and consumables in particular, that hang off it, assuming regular use and wearing out of chains, cassettes, chain-rings and other consumables, plus the initial burden of components like forks, bars, wheels, group-set etc.
Could you, for the sake of argument, buy the most sustainably-produced frame in the world then screw the environment by choosing a bunch of parts and consumables that do the opposite? What is the environmental impact of producing, packaging and transporting disc brake pads for example?
I have no idea, just musing. My guess is that it'd take quite a serious deep audit to work it all out and will, of course, be relative to mileage and maybe be offset against reduced car / train / bus / shoe leather use...
As a journo in another area, I've always found the whole green-washing v sustainability debate problematic. When you start drilling down into 'green' production certification for example, or the nuts and bolts of recycled and recyclable materials, you often realise that the devil is in the detail and quite confusing. PrimaLoft, for example, has a new initiative which utilises what they call coastal plastics, plastic waste which is recovered from 'coastal areas' before it can enter the sea and degrade further. Turns out 'coastal' is, from memory, something like 50km from the coast...
It's sometimes hard to know what's genuinely useful and what isn't and whether even flawed environmental initiatives are better than doing nothing at all, I'm sure mostly they are. When you start factoring in motivations, it gets even more complex. Big brands are under systemic pressure to green up their act. Gore isn't in the midst of a switch to a 'greener' membrane technology because they want to save the planet - though I'm sure as individuals they do - it's because pretty soon they simply won't be able to credibly use the fluoro-chemicals involved in the production of their current membrane.
Sorry, thinking aloud mostly 🙂
Cy - well done and thanks, particularly the bit about renaming a Sustainability Statement as a Reduced Impact Statement. More realistic and I read it as a very honest statement. I've always had at least one Cotic in my collection since late 2005, including 3 Roadrats along the way. Currently a BFe Max, Cascade and Mrs a11y's Roadrat in the garage. Clearly I'm a sucker for their approach but it's an approach that's IMO commendable.
If anyone knows of a frame similar to a roadrat then I’d love to know.
I'll echo the comments above about a Cascade. I've gone with drops on mine but otherwise a similar build to how my last Roadrat was set up: 700x50s and full-length guards. Coincidentally, my Cascade replaced a cracked titanium frame so I'm very much over ever owning another titanium frame.
@a11y - That is a beautiful montage of Cotic-ness. Thank you!
@honourablegeorge - Lovely job!
@stealthcat - Yours has definitely had a life!
@badlywiredog - Having zero influence over the kit we put on the bikes is quite troubling to me too, but I simply don't have an answer for it. In the absence of that answer, I'm just doing my best with what I can influence.
@others - Thanks for recommending the Cascade. If the OP would like to drop us a line, I'm sure we could come up with some ideas. Maybe upsize and flat bar as Escapade? Or if we can help getting your Roadrat fixed up we'd love to do that.
@cy - since you've done the research, would you care to publish the numbers for steel vs. carbon vs. titanium in terms of environmental footprint?
Published evidence might contribute to peoples decisions to buy your lower footprint philosophy over a cheaper alternative.
on the titanium scrap and recycling, there are quite few UK based companies that take Ti scrap and recycle in the UK, or ship for recycling, there are 6 large ones I can think of without resorting to google as I have a lot of commercial contact with the waste industries . If you call around a few local non-ferrous recycling companies, you'll find folks that will happily take your Ti frames swarf, scrap etc... It would even be a good model for bike companies to offer a buy back on knackered frames and then bulk sell onto an agent as ti scrap.
The UK is also doing rather well on the R&D side of things of looking at more energy efficient recycling of titanium alloys, so it's not all doom and gloom by any means.
Here's Reynolds' report:
https://www.reynoldstechnology.biz/company-butted-steel-tubing/our-environmental-impact-study/
Trek's is here:
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/sustainability/
@tazzymtb That's great to hear there are more titanium recycling things coming together. That said, it's still a very high energy process compared to steel or aluminium, so it's still in the negative category for me if considering new build frames.
@daffy The carbon impact is in those studies Kelvin posted, but they are purely focused on carbon emissions, and not the wider damage of virgin material extraction, crude oil use, landfill and other surrounding issues. Once you start taking those into account - although hard to quantify in any numerical way - it's clear than carbon fibre is very dirty indeed, and although titanium is better on those other issues, it's still not great overall.
Yes, I was quite capable of finding those myself, but that talks about Reynolds, NOT Cotic. Cotic then have to get frames/material from wherever to somewhere. If that's air freight, the difference in weight has a HUGE effect on the frame CO2. Similarly, if shipped by sea, the distance is doubled from Taiwan to the UK compared to air. Furthermore, all calculations assume point to point. That's fine if it arrives in the UK at a port and that's where your facility is, but if it arrives in Rotterdam, then has to be driven and ferried, again, the CO2 cost explodes.
It's not a simple equation.
@daffy With respect to Cotic, we have known for a long time that airfreight is much more damaging than road or ocean freight, so we have tried to minimise that in all parts of the supply chain. The Reynolds report acknowledges that the biggest impact na 853 tube has is being airfreighted to Taiwan to be made into a frame. We've done a lot of that in the past, but we're learning and trying to be better. I suspect our Escapade UK 853 frames have considerably lower carbon impact that stated in the Reynolds report, because they have been built and finished within about a 2 hour driving radius of Cotic.
Currently the Cascade is the only Cotic frame using 853 made in Taiwan. The steel for the rear ends there is sourced in China, and they are ocean freighted back to us in the UK. We are trying to figure out if we can manage the cashflow of ocean freighting the 853 for those to make that better.
All our other 853 frames have the tubes shipped to either Five Land in Scotland, or via road to the Czech Republic. One of our drives to onshore more of our production is a lot to do with minimising material distances as far as possible, as well as gaining more control of our supply chain. As I said, we're not perfect, but by making reducing our impact part of every Cotic decision, we will get better. I think that's all we can do.
As I said, we’re not perfect, but by making reducing our impact part of every Cotic decision, we will get better. I think that’s all we can do.
That's all anyone can do, and, what many are trying to do, but if you're paying for it (and I suppose, ultimately, charging for it) why not publish something specific with real numbers and a timeline? Like you said, it's now going to be part of your journey, help to bring others with you, helps others to join you on that journey. It'll likely help you through direct custom and hopefully force your competitors to do something similar, perhaps levelling some of those increased costs.
Lifecycle assessment is open to waay too many generalisations to be just broadly applied and justified.
cerakote_up_north
Full MemberYears ago my cousin was working in the R&D department of Micron (exhausts) owned by TI (Raleigh, Creda) who became TI Bainbridge. The point is from what my cousin said at the time when testing Titanium on exhausts for cars and motorcycles they just crack constantly when used on the roads.
Seems like a classic "we can't make it work so it's impossible" tbf, Micron made some awesome race kit but their mass market stuff never was the best. But Akrapovic, WRP, Yoshi, GPR and others all knew how to make a titanium exhaust. Mine is 20 years old I think...
[blockquote] why not publish something specific with real numbers and a timeline?[/blockquote]
Are you serious?
Enough people have jumped on this email without having every internet expert "peer reviewing" a paper with actual numbers in.
At the end of the day they're a bike company, not an environmental impact assessment company. They're going with the best data they can find and making a qualitative assessment to the best of their understanding, with references. That's better than most, prodding for more data just sounds like you're looking for a stick to beat them with (I appreciate that probably isn't your intent) in the usual spirit of letting perfect get in the way of better when it comes to these things.
I'm satisfied with Cy's responses and I'm grateful for the insight.
No need to be a forum warrior.
I like the general attitude to this. Seems sensible enough. To me as an individual how much difference the material and source of that material my bike is made from will make a pretty inconsequential difference to my over all impact on the planet. But marginal gains and all that. To Cy however, when making frames is what you do all day every day I can see it being very much something I'd want to feel good about. Or at the very least, less bad.
Long term the bikes I ride that will be the least damaging to the future planet will be the ones I already own. Whilst future improvements on bike design and tech will always make be want to upgrade, making me have to upgrade by constantly changing standards for the hell of it should be avoided at all costs.
Steel, titanium, carbon, aluminium, is there really much difference?
I have a Ti gravel bike and in my mind it feels no different from a mild steel ‘road’ bike from the 80s.
Not sure there’s much difference between my current Al mtbs and past steel ones. Other than the more modern angles are more fun.
swanny853
Full MemberIf we’re talking old roadrats I’ve still got Northwind’s old one I bought via here ten years or more ago. It’s still great.
Ol' poo brown, I never gelled with it but glad it's still going!
That’s better than most, prodding for more data just sounds like you’re looking for a stick to beat them with (I appreciate that probably isn’t your intent) in the usual spirit of letting perfect get in the way of better when it comes to these things.
1. That’s not what I’m doing.
2. That’s not what I was suggesting.
3. Who’s asking for perfect?
All I was suggesting was that Cotic have already done the assessment. Why not leverage it. Write a page for the website which shows/explains why you’ve made your decisions to be more sustainable and what it means. It’s better than “Don’t let the door hit you…”. It might just encourage more people to come in that door. Many people want to be more sustainable, Cotic seem to be already doing that, why not use it?
Titanium is just marketing ****craft to get you to buy aspirational new purchases every couple of years.
One of the worst bikes I've ever ridden was titanium. it was awful.
Didn't Charge build up two bikes exactly the same but one in steel and one in titanium & found no one could reliably tell the difference?
I'm another advocate for refurbishing what you have. I bought my Thorn Audax twenty years ago and it had a repaint last year from Argos cycles, with new decals and dents filled. It had been going rusty, but it's very comfortable and a good Reynolds replacement frame would be expensive. In that context, a few £hundred on fixing it up seems like good value. Did me proud on PBP last year and I expect I'll use it for LEL next year.
Why would/should you be able to tell the difference as it's supposed to be like steel, except it's lighter, and lasts forever.
Except everyone insists a bit of extra weight on their steel bike doesn't matter, and the latter......
thepodgeFree Member
Didn’t Charge build up two bikes exactly the same but one in steel and one in titanium & found no one could reliably tell the difference?
Yep, maybe 15 years ago now? That was a great test, and an issue of the magazine that I hung onto for years
I couldn't tell you the material in a blind test but I could tell you which bike I preferred but if both bikes we built to be the same stiffness then I would have no preference.
I like very stiff frames which are also light so carbon is obvious answer for me with steel never being the answer.
thepodge
Free MemberDidn’t Charge build up two bikes exactly the same but one in steel and one in titanium & found no one could reliably tell the difference?
Sure, but then Charge basically designed their ti bikes to be similiar to the steel ones only lighter. Like any material, titanium and steel can both have a lot of variation in how they feel, from the design/construction. I mean, we've probably all ridden alu frames that feel different to other alu frames, or whatever. Tube thickness plays a huge part, construction, bracing, etc also, and the material influences that but doesn't absolutely dictate it. Mostly it sets minimums
Like, I had at various points a Soda, a BFe and a Soul all from the same generation, all 3 were really different. The BFe felt dead and solid, the Soul was classic stereotype steel springy, the Soda was really soft but unspringy. I built them with mostly the same parts and it was still really clear. My alu Ragley Mmmbop and titanium Ti similiar, that was a super stiff alu frame and a fairly stiff ti one, you wouldn't necessarily ride the Ti and say "this is titanium" as it was no noodle, but if you rode the two you'd almost certainly say "this one is alu, this one is ti", one was super stiff and brash and harsh, the other had less chatter, more grip.
Equally if you rode an old carbon 456 and steel one, or a gen 1 Scandal and an Inbred, I think most people would get it the wrong way round tbf.
Good marketing over bad design and fabrication. That's the essence of 90s MTB.
Now Everything is pretty much spot on and you have to try really hard to buy something that's terrible, or has had terrible designed in to make them stand out (treks road frames,for example)
My anecdote comes from the Dialled Bikes. I had an Alpine and loved it for fun, but it felt dead and heavy. Somehow I managed to ride the Ti prototype they built and it was springy and jittery - the enjoyment of the steel frame was in being planted, sorted. With the Ti, that was lost. It wasn't just the same bike but lighter. Or maybe I just had the tyres pumped up too hard.
But, I have Ti Tripster and it's awesome for touring and semi-road duties.
