[Closed] TITANIUM full sussers - any good? And any beyond Merlin???

Waste of money.

But it sounds like you want one and have the money.

[url= http://www.lynskeyperformance.com/store/mountain/bikes-and-frames/full-suspension/pro29-fs-120.html ]Lynskey[/url]?

IMO better off with a carbon one, say Anthem X.

And I ride a Ti HT too 🙂

moots and eriksen do full suss, pig ugly and if you ask me 😉

pig ugly and if you ask me

Yeah Really ugly 🙄

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I love my old Tomac Revolver Ti - but they're long gone now and you can't have mine. I don't think it's daft - there is the theory that full sus bikes go out of date quickly so there's no point making them in ti, but that only applies if you're fashion-led.

The eriksen is certainly better looking than this http://www.litespeed.com/bike.asp?content=Sewanee-2013

a little bit pointless though as the feel of the frame is removed by the suspension action, unless the suspension action is poor, obviously...

The point I can see is that you can have flexible "pivots" in ti - for example my Tomac has no pivot at the bottom of the seatstay. Plus oyu get the durability of ti.

They're generally heavier and more expensive than aluminium equivalents whilst lasting no longer. If exclusivity is your top priority then go nuts. If you value performance more highly I'd look elsewhere.

I find Ti F/S as pointless as painted Ti why ?

I've been looking at this, mainly as neither the UK steel builders or the German alu builders will touch my ideas but the Chinese ti builders will happily take my money

Independent Fabrications did one - it was reviewed in ST mag many years ago. Had some kind of Dave Weagle design IIRC and was about £5k for the frame only.

Aus - Member

Googling suggest Merlin made one with an Ellsworth rear end, but haven't found many others.

I have one:
[url= http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3360/3473302351_402eb4a531_b.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3360/3473302351_402eb4a531_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/theflatboy/3473302351/ ]DSC05371[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/theflatboy/ ]theflatboy[/url], on Flickr

I love it. 🙂

flatboy - looks good - what is it that makes it ace for you?

south downs? nicest ti full suss I've seen.

I have one of those. Really like it. Had it since 2007. Ridden twice across Scottish and English C2C Miles in the Dales, Peaks, Quantocks, Mid wales, Lakes and various 7 Stanes. You can set it up for fast XC or more general do it all ride. It's not an "all mountain/downhill" bike though. It's fast as long as things don't get to rough. Forgot, done a good portion of both the Colarado Trail and the Leadville 100 on it. Love but also get a bit torn between my soul.

Apparently the Merlin Works 4 was a poor seller so there were many around in the US much reduced. As I recall there was a text in Singletrack that gave it a fair review.

I'd consider selling mine but I'd be gutted to see it go in the same way as I was sad to see my Pace RC200 go. Thing have to change. I suspect that this on is a keeper.

[url= http://www.kingdombike.com/TheKingdom/?p=1864 ]Kingdom Hex AM[/url] - too gnarly for you?

I had a Litespeed Niota Ti. Stupidly expensive, flexy and special, and not in a good way.

I've been looking at this, mainly as neither the UK steel builders or the German alu builders will touch my ideas but the Chinese ti builders will happily take my money

I've been looking at this, mainly as neither the UK steel builders or the German alu builders will touch my ideas but the Chinese ti builders will happily take my money

I'll have a go at any idea you like as long as you have money 😉

It tells me that UK steel builders are stuck in the 1950s and way over priced.

Seriously, only one builder in the UK that I contacted was interested in doing full suspension and they already charge far too much for a standard ht.

The Chinese are far more accommodating, cheaper and don't have a massive chip on their shoulder.

Ooh get her. Do you think cost could have something to do with wages? Perhaps even an artificially under valued currency? Are the potatoes a bit cheaper? I bet the chips are not fried in real beef dripping.

The Chinese are cheaper full stop. It is impossible for uk manufacturers to compete on price, and if price is your main driver then look elsewhere. I'm sure Cy and others are not being wafted to work from their country piles in their Maybachs. Uk frame manufacturers are not ripping us off and they produce products of the highest quality - probably the best frames in the world. Old school is not necessarily old fashioned.

Also steel is not old tech. On the contrary. The latest steel alloys are far higher tech and a more modern material than titanium, carbon fibre (which really is stuck in the 1970's and hasn't really progressed since then as a material) and al alloy. Steel is still the foundation of worldwide industry, not al alloy, not titanium (which is mostly used for golf clubs) and certainly not carbon.

Steel is still the foundation of worldwide industry, not al alloy, not titanium (which is mostly used for golf clubs) and certainly not carbon.

So's carbon, maybe for even a bigger industry than cycling, but certainly not an insignificant one: Fishing
🙂

probably the best frames in the world

Based on what!?

Steel is the foundation of worldwide industry because it is readily available, easy to work with and cheap. It is very rarely the ‘best’ material for the job but it is often the most cost effective. If people could afford to build ships from titanium they would because it doesn’t rust for example.

You really don’t think carbon hasn’t progressed from the days of chopped strands and hand layed up polyester resins? The bare material is still essentially the same i.e. carbon, but resin and manufacturing technology has advanced massively. You could just as easily argue that ‘high tech’ steel is still essentially iron.

The major use of titanium is as a pigment in paint, there is very little used in a set of golf clubs. Far more steel, carbon and rubber are used than titanium, which is only really used on the face of ‘woods’.

Back to the OP, I think the same as Ben, titanium is usefull in soft-tail situations where the chainstays flex to provide a bit of travel (like the Moots). As a regular full-suss design carbon and ali would seem to be better options, although the Eriksen above looks really nice.

Am I imagining this or was there a Ti Full suss from Whyte in MBR or MBUK recently? There stuff is great and sexy to boot.

By the way, in terms of options I'm fairly sure Ellsworth currently do the Tiruth, which is basically the same as my Merlin above.

edit - nope, turns out they don't any more!

Could you get the Cotic factory to do a one-off in Ti?

It tells me that UK steel builders are stuck in the 1950s and way over priced.

Seriously, only one builder in the UK that I contacted was interested in doing full suspension and they already charge far too much for a standard ht.

The Chinese are far more accommodating, cheaper and don't have a massive chip on their shoulder.

Well, that got weird - especially as I wasn't even born in the '50s and like every other British framebuilder I know I'm not exactly rich 😉

Of course China will be cheap for stuff. The cost of living is a fraction of what it is here, and there's a huge pool of labour. But a custom frame is a conversation - when I build a frame for someone, I typically spend several hours on the phone, exchange quite a few emails and send lots of drawings back and forth to make sure the frame ends up exactly right.

It's hard to have a conversation like that when your framebuilder is on the other side of the World, and speaks only Chinese.

Got a Titus Motolite in exogrid I might be persuaded to part with.....

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Jeronimo Chabardo ti

Yes a Ti full susser is daft but if you have the money why not 😀

Funk Cycles La Ruta would be the top of my list

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oldfart - Member
I find Ti F/S as pointless as painted Ti why ?

Painting Ti is like putting a supermodel in tramps clothing; it's just not right. 😀

Black sheep do custom ti fs, they're lush

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[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ibis-bow-ti-redux-photo-heavy ]Ibis Bow Ti of course[/url]

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Stock reply from a UK builder, "oooh that's not something we normally do, & it'll be pricey, I'm not sure it's worth me looking into"

Stock reply from a Chinese builder "yes, no problem"

I'm after a frame builder not some self appointed "master craftsman of dark arts"

Last year's bespoke Bristol shows how little things have moved on. The only full suspension I could find was UK built, Chinese made. The only fat bike US designed, Chinese made. Most of the mountain bikes looked like they were straight from the 90s & the retro look road bike was everywhere.

Bung me an email. Seriously.

Today, I'm building a Rohloff rear swingarm for a Brompton, designing a tandem tricycle and starting on a curvy-stayed MTB with upside-dowen forks if I have time.

Cool, might be some time over easter before I get round to it but I'll defo drop you a line

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Stock reply from a Chinese builder "yes, no problem"

Having spent 6 months of last year working with a Chinese manufacturer getting an aluminium hi-fi chassis made.

Their idea of 'no problem' wasn't the same as ours.

They kept saying that 'anything was possible' while going through about 7 prototypes which just weren't up to scratch.

And that was including having someone on the ground in China.

Eventually we had to switch manufacturers.

The other to watch out for is that you want someone who works with Ti all the time. I've seen some custom Ti work before where the welds were shocking. If I was paying $$$$'s and the welds were shit I'd be ashamed to own it...it's not like you can send custom work back (without losing lots of money). Sure if a weld's cocked up it can be re-done, but not without introducing more heat and making the material more brittle. And that's without going into distortion, etc.

(I used to be a welder/fabricator)

A couple of other Ti builders:

[url= http://ticycles.com/ ]ticycles.com[/url]
[url= http://www.sevencycles.com/home.php ]sevencycles.com[/url]

I have a Merlin Works 4.0 like flatboy. I bought it in late 2007. Ellsworth sold basically the same thing as the Tiruth, but they were laser marked instead of decals. I got the Merlin becase a LBS could order them, and there was no Ellsworth dealer for 100s of miles. The Merlin was a bit cheaper as well.

There you go podge, a builder who won't just make anything whether it's any good or not, which is the problem with 'a number of' far eastern builders. Often good fabricators, questionable bike designers.

I don't need a bike designer. I need a frame builder.

That's another thing with the UK lot, they all presume to know better without even looking at what I have

So every UK frame builder has been contacted you? They all presume to know better? Why? 🙂

Because building frames is the hardest thing in the world and no one could ever match their knowledge so it's not worth asking about my background or even casting a quick glance of my designs to see if it's possible.

Much better to to just keep avoiding innovation, new ideas & continue to moan / bad mouth foreign workers

From the way you've moaned and whinged on here, I'd probably avoid you as well! You make it sound like the UK could support a pool of custom bike makers in all materials in all styles just waiting for people like you to come along and buy one (just one).

Why not do a framebuilding course and beat them at their own game then?

podge, be realistic.

For most uk framebuilders building a one off fs frame will take ages as its not what they are used to, so they will likely lose money and only gain knowledge they'll never use again.

I've got some sympathy with Podge, getting UK frame builders to build even in something as prosaic as Ali as some of them sucking through their teeth, one even told me that he wouldn't want to build a frame that could take a fork as long as 140mm, as "It wouldn't work, and wouldn't be safe" and that's a direct quote...

Anyway, the Ti that bikes are made from is pretty rubbish in the grand scheme of things, but there's no reason you can't make a nice FS out of the material.

I could do a frame building course but that would cost me more than getting something built in China & apparently there is no money in it do I'd have to take a pay cut.

Al, I am being realistic. If you read back to my first post this started as me saying I was happy to get Chinese made stuff. It's only after the brigade of "China is rubbish" turned up that I point out why I'd be happy to go there.

I had a little car park spin on a black sheep softail a year or so ago. I suppose it counts a FS. It was a great bike.

I'd buy a Ti FS I really like the look and finish of ti.

As for waste of money, most of mountain biking is.

For me Ti only works best on FS when it is part of the design and not just a version of an alu FS bike.

Examples are the Ibis BowTi where the frame has 5 inches of travel in the frame, no mechanical pivots. Ibis only did 269 of them because of the expense of producing. I have one and its lurvly. Steve Potts will build you one but expect to pay top TOP dollar.

Others include many of the soft tails such as black sheep and I think litespeed did one ages ago.

Otherwise, in truth, youre buying it for the aesthetic.

and it's such a nice aesthetic. 🙂

Maybe thats the problem - in the US they will build things and think about how to make it work, in the far east, they will build things without thinking if it will work, and here we won't build stuff if we don't know if it could work....

Bratty, that does seem to be the case

In my experience, and I get approached to build a lot of prototype and experimental things, the problem really is that most "bike designers" don't have much of a budget.

In my experience, and I get approached to build a lot of prototype and experimental things, the problem really is that most "bike designers" don't have much of a budget.

I agree.

I'm constantly coming up with stupid ideas for bikes, I'm glad of two things,

1. I don't have the money.
2. A framebuilder would talk me out of it. (36er FS SS Fatbike)

I had a DNA, son still has his. No suspension at all but great bike, very well made in Russia. These guys seem to do some amazing work, http://forums.mtbr.com/bike-frame-discussion/triton-bikes-titanium-frames-handmade-russia-anyone-583688.html
Towards the end of the thread they are building a titanium fat bike frame. I have a Moonlander and love it. You should consider a Ti fat bike, brilliant fun.
Brian

OP, I will probably be selling the Merlin Works 4.0 frame in this thread very soon, if you would be interested? It's a large (18.75" I believe) in excellent condition. One or two very slight scuffs on the (alu) rear triangle, but that's it.

Let me know if you are interested.

tfb.

Just on the off-chance, the frame and/or whole bike will likely be going for sale within the next week or so, so drop me an email if you're interested in either. As pictured on page 1 of this thread.

How much? Frame only.

Probably £1k with shock.