As I was researching Stinner bikes, especially their titanium models, I had a hard time finding much online other than press release regurgitations, so I’m hoping this may help anyone who is considering a Stinner Ti bike.
They say good things come to those who wait, and that was definitely the case for this bike.
I have a wonderful steel SaltAir bike that has made its rounds on this forum, but my tire width on that maxed out at 25mm and I was ready to upgrade to a carbon wheel/disc brake setup. And titanium has been on my bucket list. So I started doing a bunch of research on titanium bikes last year.
I looked at the usual suspects for ti bikes, but Stinner really seemed to hit the mark when considering many of the most important factors to me (made in the USA, reasonable price, minimal wait, etc.). I wasn’t interested in a 1x gravel setup because I live in Salt Lake, and the vast majority of my riding is group road riding up and down the canyons and I didn’t want to deal with the bigger jump in gears that a 1x setup would have presented. So I felt the Carrizo was a really nice happy medium for me and the type of riding I do.
Stinner makes a dedicated 1x gravel frame and a dedicated road bike frame, but I wanted a “happy medium” bike that can do both road and light gravel work, so the Carrizo was my preferred option. I will likely get a second set of wheels with 40mm gravel tires so I can easily hot-swap into a gravel setup whenever I need to.
The ordering process through Stinner’s website was super smooth. You can order these bikes frame/fork only or as a full build. I had some shiny bits I wanted to spec out on the bike, so I opted for the frame/fork option. There are two finish options: black decals or a masked/polished ti finish. I went with the polished ti. The frame has a T47 BB and UDH, so I’m hoping that this bike is future-proofed for a little while.
I think my order caught Stinner at a bad time. They had just had a blockbuster year with some nice press, just launched their “off the rack” standard sizing production frames, expanded their contract manufacturing, and their small fabrication facility was bursting at the seams. So it was just a perfect storm for them that resulted in a longer-than-expected delivery timeline.
But I have to say that communication from them was A+. Within a day of my order I received an email from CJ, their sales manager, informing me that their lead times were longer than stated on the website due to them being backed up from a busy summer. No problem. But 8-10 weeks turned into 17 weeks, shipping out the last week of December. But CJ communicated with me all along the way, even sending me update photos of my frame making its way through production. In the past month or so Stinner moved into a larger facility that I’m sure will ease their capacity issues.
I worked with local SLC shop Contender Bicycles for the build. Here’s a summary:
- SRAM AXS Force throughout, with a 46/33 front and 10-36 on the back
- Chris King headset and bottom bracket
- ENVE SES AR Road In-Route handlebar (gotta support local!)
- ENVE 400mm 25mm offset seatpost
- ENVE x Selle Italia Boost SLR saddle
- $5 Ti bottle cages from Ali Express
- Reynolds AR46 carbon wheels
- Continental Grand Prix 5000 AS TR 32mm (they measure out to 33mm on the Reynolds)
In hindsight I would have probably gone with Wolf Tooth or White Industries for the shiny bits. Chris King took a crazy amount of time to ship the headset and other parts. And then when they finally shipped the bottom bracket, it was the wrong one so we had to wait for the right one, which took another 3 weeks. All in all it was probably 6 weeks of waiting for CK to ship the necessary parts. Oh and they ended up shipping the wrong headset (gloss instead of matte), so the shop is having to reorder and will have to install the new matte headset when it arrives.
The bike rides super nice. I have no idea how much is that attributable to the titanium versus the 32mm tubeless tires, but regardless it is a very smooth ride even at 10psi above recommended (recommended for me is 60). Can’t wait to dial this thing in!
