Originally Posted by
Doug5150
CF has high labor and engineering costs, leaving only aluminum and steel. And of those two, steel is much easier to work with.
Not true.
CF frames are basically made from a mould at what is probably only a few $ each.
but it's odd to use for a frame--unless you want a REALLY flexy frame.
Not true at all.
Who told you that ti frames are REALLY flexy? Some are most aren't.
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Semi-related: a few years ago I was browsing Alibaba searching for something, and ran across a Taiwan company making titanium MTB parts.
Pretty much
EVERY METAL PART there was, you could get in titanium. Spokes, spoke nipples, clones of popular SRAM/Shimano front/rear shifters and deraillers (100% metal=Ti), ect ect.... They could even deliver saddles that already had titanium rails in them.
Cables and bearings was the
only two things they didn't make.
It was a wholesale-only company, but they listed prices for their 50/MOQ. From them, it would have cost about $14,000 to assemble a MTB with
almost-
totally-titanium parts.[/QUOTE]