I am on my third titanium frame and have an observation or two for you. in 2001 I designed and built my own steel frame using lugs and a vintage Reynolds 531 tube set. By far it is my favorite frame to ride as I designed to to fit me exactly as I prefer. Ten years after I built that frame I bought an off the shelf road frame from habcycles.com. I loved that bike with the same degree of feeling as my own design, except that it is a very different ride experience due to frame design. That frame was replaced with another habanero cycles frame, except this time it was their cyclocross frame. Coupled with the wonderfully comfortable Surly cross fork made from steel, it is supremely comfortable to ride, easily as good as my own design.

The cross frame was given to my son who still rides it, and I went back to a road frame from habanero cycles simply because it is a different ride experience from my own design. I still love my old steel frame, and still ride it, however I also love the habanero frame because it is so different in design and gives me a different experience when riding it.

The question begs, why am I attracted to titanium? Two reasons, they don't get scratched or chipped and they ride like a well crafted high end steel frame. That's it. I have lots of ride time on carbon frames from back in the 90's to the current mash of gravel and road. My preference always returns to steel, and then to titanium because I don't like having chips and scratches in the finish of my bikes.