Originally Posted by joey buzzard

Thanks for your reply.

I'm very familiar with the standard Alu Swift. Like you I also bought a frame from Peter a couple years back. In fact I now have four aluminium Swift frames (well, three and a half actually - one of them is broken). One from Peter, another on a bike I bought second hand which is with a friend, another I broke (my original Xootr), and my current ride which is built on a frame Xootr shipped to me last year as a warranty replacement for the broken one.

I feel like a bit of a jerk hoarding all these lovely frames, but I do ride my bikes hard. I basically live in my saddle and I like racing and climbing mountains. And the Swift is great at all this and more. I've decided that even as the whole world goes to hell I always want for the rest of my riding days to have a Swift. It's the perfect bike for me. However, with the number of kilometers I ride and the terrain and the gradients I feel that all my Alu Swift's have finite life.

Hence why I'm seeking out titanium as it's more durable.

I've considered ordering a frame from Titan. I emailed them once a couple years ago, but I've decided that I don't want to pay thousands of dollars to a company in China, which I regard as a totalitarian state and where the lines between private and state enterprise are often blurry. The PLA own a lot of businesses and welding titanium together is useful for building things other than bicycles. Whatever misqivings I might have about the United States, I'm pretty sure any frame builder who I engage there isn't also building components for missiles or submarines.

Here's a picture of my current ride.


Someday I'll have to build one frame with an internal gear hub. I like my derailleur, but imagine some advantages to internal gears.