Someone owed me a favour so I asked them to make me this frame as my ‘midlife crisis’ special…
Like the titanium love child of a Sonder Transmitter and a Stif Morf; a plus hardtail designed around 2.8″ tyres with a 150mm fork and a tiny seat tube so you can run a 170mm dropper.
I wanted to keep the lines as clean as possible as cables flapping around everywhere annoy me – although given the sweat on I got running them through the frame, it’s not something I’d necessarily do again 😉
Hopefully pics below if I can work out how to do it…

Very very nice. That must have been some favour😀

That is all kinds of nice just watch for the cables rubbing on the steerer tube.

what are the angles? look like an on-fashion head angle and an off-fashion seat angle? looks nice

That’s really nice.  Could you post the geometry please? Are you please with the ride quality? Who built the frame? Thanks

I like that a lot!

That is very nice!

Think I’d use some sugru on the entry and exit holes to stop water ingress.

Who built it?

Holy tyre clearance!
Likey.

Noice!

Very nice

Thanks all!

@thepodge I’ve heard about that happening on some Commencal’s – I’ve cunningly added some guides in the head tube that should take care of that, although they did give me a few ‘challenges’ too 😉 I’ll see if I can find a pic later so you can see what I mean.

As a few of you have noticed I’m running a 63 degree head with a 72-73 degree seat angle purely because it puts the saddle in the right place for me. I’d noticed before my saddle was all the way back on the rails (I had an aluminium Sonder Transmitter) so I was aiming to put the seatpost clamp in the middle to make up for the lack of layback. (Plus I think that 75-76 degree seattubes can look rather weird on a frame with a super slack head angle).

@Rik I was debating something like that but I’m never sure if I’m stopping it getting in or preventing it from draining out! 🙂 Can Sugru be removed easily enough?

I write a blog that covers people’s experiences of having titanium frames made direct from China http://www.spanner.org.uk. I did an interview with Titan (who make OEM frames for other small brands) to introduce their company and they offered to make me a frame to show off their skills. I couldn’t resist having a crack at designing my ‘ultimate’ plus hardtail… 🙂

I’m not looking to make a business out of it (too much hard work and way too much competition!) but if anyone is interested in getting one made then I’m happy to shepherd through having a small batch produced. You might have to put up with my vanity branding though 😉

You can find out more about the project over here: http://www.screwyoudeath.com

Love the website OP, will definitely spend some time on there! Off the shelf frames are becoming so much now, it might be more economical to get a custom titanium one. It says quite a lot about the prices of frames that custom titanium is cheaper. The Surly Ogre frameset has gone up to £750 a piece, last I was looking at custom titanium frames they were about £500 each.

Mega cool bike by the way. Very jealous! Waiting on my 650+ hardtail, it’s in the post!

Very nice!

I like the internal routing through the HT.

I’m not keen on drilling a gert big hole through the DT near the top.  Always seems a very innapropriate place to weaken the tube for aesthetic gain.

Ah that is very nice and I like the website too.

How much did the frame end up weighing?

Out of interest how much would something like that cost (prob minus the internal cabling)?

Very, very nice! 🙂

Threading that rear brake hose through the frame must have taken some doing!

Very nice indeed!  I’d love to scratch the custom Ti hardtail itch.

I like it! Cool

A couple of my bikes are on Spanner.org, although I’ve not had any done by Titan. Quite a rewarding a fun project, particularly to have something relatively unique for a fair saving over a stock frame.  Price for a frame starts from about $600 for a basic HT, then depends on things like tapered headttubes, chainstay yokes, internal cabling and all the fiddly stuff can take you to $1,000 + shipping. You may get stung by customs charges too.  It’s been 3 years since my last frame, so may need to start scratching that itch….

Sometimes get an interesting reaction from some in “the trade” – one guy told me I was a liability, didn’t know what I’m doing / will die a horrible death etc. Wouldn’t want to do it as a business though as it’s not really a sustainable business model / easy to copy / undercutting on price.

Pretty. How does the front end feel with a plus tyre and that much travel? I run my Transmitter at 120mm up front to keep some directness to it.

I’m not sure I like the idea of combining the slightly blunt feel of a plus tyre with a longer travel fork, I suspect it could get a bit vague particularly with some slack geometry thrown in.

Who did the head badge btw? Cute 🙂

There’s an awful lot of welding going on at the seat-tube /top-tube junction – I know on your blog you do mention it when other people get a bit weld happy, did you just decide it’ll most likely be fine?

(from Ti AWOL guy!)

That looks lovely 🙂

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Cheers, Rich

@bedmaker @shermer75 The internal cable routing was a bit of an exercise in ‘pretty’ to see if it could be done, I wouldn’t necessarily inflict it on anyone else!

Standard gear cable/brake hose wasn’t flexible enough to go through the headtube which is why it’s using Jagwire link and Hope braided. Fitting was aided with a Park Tools internal cable ‘fishing’ kit and a lot of swearing 😉

The gears are surprisingly smooth, that Jagwire is top stuff!

The dropper hose doesn’t go via the bottom bracket but has its own hole at the seattube/downtube junction.

I went with the least evil option of putting the hole in the top of the down tube rather than on the underside where it’s most stressed. Surprisingly I’ve not seen/heard of one breaking yet…

@bedmaker @shermer75 The internal cable routing was a bit of an exercise in ‘pretty’ to see if it could be done, I wouldn’t necessarily inflict it on anyone else!

Standard gear cable/brake hose wasn’t flexible enough to go through the headtube which is why it’s using Jagwire link and Hope braided. Fitting was aided with a Park Tools internal cable ‘fishing’ kit and a lot of swearing 😉

The holes in the headtube could be made a bit neater with some grommets perhaps… The gears are surprisingly smooth, that Jagwire is top stuff!

The dropper hose doesn’t go via the bottom bracket but has its own hole at the seattube/downtube junction.

I went with the least evil option of putting the hole in the top of the down tube rather than on the underside where it’s most stressed. Surprisingly I’ve not seen/heard of one breaking yet…

@bedmaker @shermer75 The internal cable routing was a bit of an exercise in ‘pretty’ to see if it could be done, I wouldn’t necessarily inflict it on anyone else!

Standard gear cable/brake hose wasn’t flexible enough to go through the headtube which is why it’s using Jagwire link and Hope braided. Fitting was aided with a Park Tools internal cable ‘fishing’ kit and a lot of swearing 😉

The holes in the headtube could be made a bit neater with some grommets perhaps… The gears are surprisingly smooth, that Jagwire is top stuff!

The dropper hose doesn’t go via the bottom bracket but has its own hole at the seattube/downtube junction.

I went with the least evil option of putting the hole in the top of the down tube rather than on the underside where it’s most stressed. Surprisingly I’ve not seen/heard of one breaking yet…

Hmm, the forum was playing up again, can you tell? 😉

@Rik, reassuring rather than scary that’s for sure – around 2.2kg or 4.85lbs on my kitchen scales. Probably safe to say it’s unlikely to break anytime soon 🙂

We’ve got the weak £ and VAT/Import duty to contend with, but I’d say around £900 give or take. For that though you’d get a fair degree of flexibility when it comes to sizing and tweaking the cable runs etc.

DM me here or drop me a line via the website if you’re interested, if a few people are up for it I’ll have a batch made.

@dovebiker @IvanDobski Hi Guys!

Yes, there’s quite a few ‘rule’s broken here including putting in holes for internal cables! The seat tube join does have plenty of welding around it but I thought on balance it would be worth it to make sure the area was strong enough to support the long post leverage. (They’ve done a pretty impressive job too as there’s not much room back there).

There’s still tons of post left in the frame which should help spread the load. I’m not 100% sold on how the supporting plate for the seatpost looks though…

The headtube gusset is also welded all the way around where traditionally it would be left open on the back face. Again as I’ve seen other people doing it and not having seen any failures I thought I’d go that route too and I think it looks slightly neater.

Tis lovely.

A Ti fatbike frame has been on my Wanted list for a while and this just makes me want it even more. Brant organised my Ti B+ frame before he got into trousers so another avenue would be ideal. I guess I’d be expecting to pay around £1,000 which looks cheap compared with what Salsa expect you to pay!

Very nice. Looks like you’ve got a nice build there. Hope it rides as well as it looks!

I’m in that same ‘mid-life’ crisis bit and have just placed an order for a very similar Ti frame. Bedmaker tried to advise me to go directly<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> but I decided to go through Mr Stooge as opposed to going through Waltly or XACD. </span><span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>I’m willing to pay a little more to get someone who’s qualified and has proven examples of </span><span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>their designs as opposed to me guessing a few things. I’m also to pay for someones time, </span>especially<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> someone who’s been good to me before and has a good reputation in the UK.</span>

In saying that I’ve had a couple of custom Ti Truss forks made directly from XACD and they are very very nice things.

Also planning on 27.5+ HT rig on a shortish 120mm travel fork but still thinking about the rest of the build. For the first time in over 15 years, I’m going to go for conventional gears as opposed to Rolhoff…will I die?! Decisions decisions decisions!

@BadlyWiredDog Give it a go, you might be surprised. Running the forks nice and soft with around 25 – 30% sag I don’t think the difference in height is that great, but you can appreciate the additional travel when you need it.

I’m running 10psi in the front DHF and it still feels pretty direct. I think 800mm bars help to keep everything pointed in the right direction.

I worried about keeping enough weight over the front to make sure it digs in but that does’t seem to be a huge issue. It feels… pretty unstoppable!

The headbadge was going to be a custom design but until I get that sorted out I went with one from this chap over on Etsy, he’s got a number of excellent designs!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Mediterrantio

<span style=”color: #444444; font-size: 12px; background-color: #eeeeee;”>A Ti fatbike frame has been on my Wanted list for a while and this just makes me want it even more.</span>

Here’s mine for some inspiration:

http://www.spanner.org.uk/2015/04/frasers-custom-titanium-full-fat-bike-from-waltly/

Regardless of the fact it was full custom, including the twin, curved toptubes, polished downtube and headtube designs, the best part was that it cost less (including shipping) than a stock Surly steel frame that weighs 2lbs more.

Rosscopeco how much do the ti truss cost you out of interest thanks

That is a lovely looking bike. A Ti hardtail is something I’d love to own one day.

I’m on my 4th….

That is a lovely looking bike. A Ti hardtail is something I’d love to own one day.

Yes, that’s smashing. I ‘d love a Ti BFe.

That is a lovely looking bike. A Ti hardtail is something I’d love to own one day.

Yes, that’s smashing. I‘d love a Ti BFe.

Reposted cos I can’t **** edit on the **** stupid new stupid **** forum. **** stupid.

>Like the titanium love child of a Sonder Transmitter and a Stif Morf

I assume the cheque is in the post?

@brant Well, they do say it’s the most sincere form of flattery…

@firestarter I paid $575 plus a little towards the custom charges (ahem).

XACD were really easy to deal with other then Porters demands to answer his emails within 30s of you receiving them. @bedmaker had good things to say about Waltly too.