Why is titanium controversial?
11-17-09 | 07:04 PM
#76
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I see no controversy with Ti.
It rides like nothing else, and is extremely well-behaved.
It doesn't rust.
You don't have to paint it.
With the right wheel set, it's downright docile.
With the right wheel set, it's downright quick.
When I find a frame that fits, with my kind of geometry, I'm gettin' another one.
No controversy at all.
It rides like nothing else, and is extremely well-behaved.
It doesn't rust.
You don't have to paint it.
With the right wheel set, it's downright docile.
With the right wheel set, it's downright quick.
When I find a frame that fits, with my kind of geometry, I'm gettin' another one.
No controversy at all.
11-17-09 | 08:05 PM
#77
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From: Puyallup Washington
Bikes: Motobecane Mirage fixed gear, Nashbar Alpha Road 5000, Bianchi Grizzly, Coppi Fiorelli, , Schwinn Trike, , GT All Terra, Old Peugeot, Nishiki 3 speed, Bugatti, Cannondale Black Lightning, Dura All, Bianchi Touring, Bridgestone T700 & more
On a serious note...Ti got a bad wrap when it was introduced on the market for good reason. It broke...It's a fact. It wasn't until different Ti alloys were introduced and better engineering and manufacturing techniques came around that Ti found it's place in the world of bicycles. And what a great place it has found! Nobody in their right mind can deny that Ti is a fantastic material for making frames and select components when used and built appropriately.
Seems like some of the argument is really about aesthetics. I personally (like probably many here in C&V) prefer lugs. Fact of the matter is there are not many lugged Ti bikes around. I'd love to own the lugged Ti bike Pino and Behringer built or maybe even the lugged Bruce Gordon (except the ugly slanted top tube) but alas...I'm cheap.
I guess my point is that to some people (like myself) a bicycle is much more than just a tool to get you from point A to B. I like lugs. Preferably modestly filed and thinned. I like seeing the craftsmanship. While I have seen some welded bikes that were finely crafted they still don't make my blood pressure rise the same as when I see a finely crafted lugged steel bike.
I once saw the most craptacular Stella on earth. Nervex looking lugs with file marks everywhere. Looked like it had been built and painted by brush 50 years ago by some drunken Frenchman after lunch on a Friday afternoon...I would have sold every bike I own to get that bike. Can't say I would do the same for any Ti, aluminum or carbon fiber bike...Except the Pino & Behringer.
I don't know if I'd call that vanity...Maybe an appreciation for the work done by a mans hands? It's visible unlike most welded or bonded bikes...Maybe this is the "soul" I've seen referenced when talking about steel?
I don't race. I just ride every single day and I'd prefer if the bike appeals to me aesthetically. If the bike was just a tool for me I wouldn't own a single one that I do (except my mucho modded Cannondale Cad3 MTB...It's a tool).
P.S. I appreciate that someone brought up the ugly impact that Ti has and or had on the world. Whether it's questionable manufacturing processes or questionable sourcing. That's a discussion for P&R though...
11-17-09 | 08:18 PM
#78
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Not classic yet, but this is the kind of bike that will be in the future. My Litespeed Vortex with Campy Record. I can't post a picture of it in the road bike forum or I'd get slammed for not flipping the stem!!!
Last edited by slushlover2; 11-17-09 at 08:21 PM.
11-17-09 | 09:00 PM
#79
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I see it as essentially ignorance amongst those drinking the Kool-Aid of the steel cult.
A steel bike is NEVER the right bike for the application, there is always another material that does EVERYTHING steel does better, lighter, faster, more efficiently, stronger, or stiffer. Always.
Everything a handcrafted high end steel frame can do an engineered titanium bike can do better. Everything...
Its all about snob appeal, some need to validate oneself as more sophisticated, learned, or enlightened. The best thing is that the personality types that scoff at titanium, carbon, and aluminum are also the same types that have to validate themselves as cyclists on every group ride. In this, there is some sense of delicious justice. Their bikes are horrendously inefficient, are boat anchors, and they have to put out significantly more wattage to just keep pace with the titanium, carbon, and even the garage sale Cannondale crowd.
People don't remember where this all came from in the first place. When the US market changed the paradigm with oversized aluminum bikes those that stood the most to lose, the boutique builders of handmade Italian steel bikes, started a whispering campaign about these new bikes being 'too stiff', too this and too that.
The only place for steel is on cheap bikes in India and China, and also to separate rich ignorant vain Americans from their money.
As for you titanium bike, enjoy it. What it really comes down to is that your status symbol challenges their desperate attempt to validate and signal their own sense of self. Which is sad, because riding a bike should put a smile on your face, and most definitely should not be something to arm the arsenal of vanity and false pride.
A steel bike is NEVER the right bike for the application, there is always another material that does EVERYTHING steel does better, lighter, faster, more efficiently, stronger, or stiffer. Always.
Everything a handcrafted high end steel frame can do an engineered titanium bike can do better. Everything...
Its all about snob appeal, some need to validate oneself as more sophisticated, learned, or enlightened. The best thing is that the personality types that scoff at titanium, carbon, and aluminum are also the same types that have to validate themselves as cyclists on every group ride. In this, there is some sense of delicious justice. Their bikes are horrendously inefficient, are boat anchors, and they have to put out significantly more wattage to just keep pace with the titanium, carbon, and even the garage sale Cannondale crowd.
People don't remember where this all came from in the first place. When the US market changed the paradigm with oversized aluminum bikes those that stood the most to lose, the boutique builders of handmade Italian steel bikes, started a whispering campaign about these new bikes being 'too stiff', too this and too that.
The only place for steel is on cheap bikes in India and China, and also to separate rich ignorant vain Americans from their money.
As for you titanium bike, enjoy it. What it really comes down to is that your status symbol challenges their desperate attempt to validate and signal their own sense of self. Which is sad, because riding a bike should put a smile on your face, and most definitely should not be something to arm the arsenal of vanity and false pride.
Rather than belittle the choices of the unwashed masses for whom you deign to speak, perhaps the writer would prefer to encounter the evidence that always counts, the actual reality that is apparent: steel is often the right bike for the application, and often the best choice. Beauty and function and form and taste always apply when it's a human decision, as does value. As long as steel is showing up at triathlons, criteriums, centuries, and daily rides, the reality is that it is the best choice for a certain percentage of the population, and all your rumination can't change that fact.
"Everything a handcrafted high end steel frame can do an engineered titanium bike can do better. Everything..." Tell me, then, what is the difference between an engineered steel frame and a handcrafted high end titanium frame? I reversed the modifiers on purpose, to illustrate the point in lieu of using a crayon. Apples to apples, there, buckaroo, and don't get caught up in the politician's game of comparing your apples to their mangos, to mangle a phrase and obfuscate the issue...(i.e. "Health Care" reform vs. "how to pay for getting un-sick" reform).
Steel is real, not cliche. It's strong, and old, reliable, predictable, and can take many forms, from a 50-lb newspaper behemoth to a dainty, skittish Italian sprite. It can be dirt cheap and approach the performance of the same material (or different) costing exponentially more. For you Marines, that's a lot more.
Titanium is fine, durable, light, and all the things that steel can be, and some things it's not, except cheap. I can build 3-4 great steel bikes for the price of the great titanium bike that I built. Are they 1/3 to 1/4 the quality, ride, and precision of the titanium bike? Yes, easily. I'm not a high thinker like the above authority, but in my low-rent, day to day world of steel bikes, iron men, women with hips, and real concerns, I'd say my steel bikes are 8's if my titanium bike was a 10.
If you're being tongue in cheek, it's hilarious. If not, my recommendation is to drink more, and possibly seek an encounter with a significant other who's not so impressed with alleged intellectualism.
11-17-09 | 09:32 PM
#80
Death fork? Naaaah!!
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From: The other Maine, north of RT 2
Bikes: Seriously downsizing.
Only from Madison would come such a well-written attempt to pass off style as intelligence. By intelligence, I refer to it as a commodity, such as pork, or perhaps hogwash, or a silk purse from the cliched pig's ear. Perhaps it is an attempt to compensate for some unknown (but maybe painfully obvious) shortcoming, or even to belittle the connection between steel and it's earthy origins of sweat and toil.
Rather than belittle the choices of the unwashed masses for whom you deign to speak, perhaps the writer would prefer to encounter the evidence that always counts, the actual reality that is apparent: steel is often the right bike for the application, and often the best choice. Beauty and function and form and taste always apply when it's a human decision, as does value. As long as steel is showing up at triathlons, criteriums, centuries, and daily rides, the reality is that it is the best choice for a certain percentage of the population, and all your rumination can't change that fact.
"Everything a handcrafted high end steel frame can do an engineered titanium bike can do better. Everything..." Tell me, then, what is the difference between an engineered steel frame and a handcrafted high end titanium frame? I reversed the modifiers on purpose, to illustrate the point in lieu of using a crayon. Apples to apples, there, buckaroo, and don't get caught up in the politician's game of comparing your apples to their mangos, to mangle a phrase and obfuscate the issue...(i.e. "Health Care" reform vs. "how to pay for getting un-sick" reform).
Steel is real, not cliche. It's strong, and old, reliable, predictable, and can take many forms, from a 50-lb newspaper behemoth to a dainty, skittish Italian sprite. It can be dirt cheap and approach the performance of the same material (or different) costing exponentially more. For you Marines, that's a lot more.
Titanium is fine, durable, light, and all the things that steel can be, and some things it's not, except cheap. I can build 3-4 great steel bikes for the price of the great titanium bike that I built. Are they 1/3 to 1/4 the quality, ride, and precision of the titanium bike? Yes, easily. I'm not a high thinker like the above authority, but in my low-rent, day to day world of steel bikes, iron men, women with hips, and real concerns, I'd say my steel bikes are 8's if my titanium bike was a 10.
If you're being tongue in cheek, it's hilarious. If not, my recommendation is to drink more, and possibly seek an encounter with a significant other who's not so impressed with alleged intellectualism.
Rather than belittle the choices of the unwashed masses for whom you deign to speak, perhaps the writer would prefer to encounter the evidence that always counts, the actual reality that is apparent: steel is often the right bike for the application, and often the best choice. Beauty and function and form and taste always apply when it's a human decision, as does value. As long as steel is showing up at triathlons, criteriums, centuries, and daily rides, the reality is that it is the best choice for a certain percentage of the population, and all your rumination can't change that fact.
"Everything a handcrafted high end steel frame can do an engineered titanium bike can do better. Everything..." Tell me, then, what is the difference between an engineered steel frame and a handcrafted high end titanium frame? I reversed the modifiers on purpose, to illustrate the point in lieu of using a crayon. Apples to apples, there, buckaroo, and don't get caught up in the politician's game of comparing your apples to their mangos, to mangle a phrase and obfuscate the issue...(i.e. "Health Care" reform vs. "how to pay for getting un-sick" reform).
Steel is real, not cliche. It's strong, and old, reliable, predictable, and can take many forms, from a 50-lb newspaper behemoth to a dainty, skittish Italian sprite. It can be dirt cheap and approach the performance of the same material (or different) costing exponentially more. For you Marines, that's a lot more.
Titanium is fine, durable, light, and all the things that steel can be, and some things it's not, except cheap. I can build 3-4 great steel bikes for the price of the great titanium bike that I built. Are they 1/3 to 1/4 the quality, ride, and precision of the titanium bike? Yes, easily. I'm not a high thinker like the above authority, but in my low-rent, day to day world of steel bikes, iron men, women with hips, and real concerns, I'd say my steel bikes are 8's if my titanium bike was a 10.
If you're being tongue in cheek, it's hilarious. If not, my recommendation is to drink more, and possibly seek an encounter with a significant other who's not so impressed with alleged intellectualism.
Once again I'm guilty of underestimating Marines!
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11-17-09 | 11:41 PM
#81
11-18-09 | 12:14 AM
#82
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From: Torrance, CA
Bikes: Homebuilt steel
What a crock of ....! Let me guess, you're an English lit prof at UofW. Well, I'm a retired structural engineer, and I've got news for you buddy. There ain't a whole lot of difference between the various metal alloys that can be formed into tubing shapes and used to fabricate bicycle frames. They are all linear, elastic, isotropic materials that have comparable ratios of young's modulus to unit weight, which in lay terms simply means that they can all be used to make frames with similar properties. My choices of frame materials have always been based on pragmatic considerations of cost and availability, and I don't associate with people that worship inanimate objects or see their own worth in terms of their possessions. I don't "scoff" at materials any more than I might howl at the moon.
You da man!
11-18-09 | 04:01 AM
#83
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From: Northern Wisconsin, USA
Bikes: '80's vintage Dutch framed(Gazelle), Japanese components,set up for city riding and light touring...fenders, rack and bags.
The really cool thing about Titanium is when you grind it it spits out a blue spark. That alone makes you wonder, 'what's in it'?
I heard the Russians make their submarines, or at least some of them, out of titanium. They are the fastest in the world. That could be myth.
We ride all year in Northern Wisconsin.
And use the F word when provoked.
Someone asked for more pictures so...
I'm gonna start a new thread.
Bill in Stevens Point, WI
I heard the Russians make their submarines, or at least some of them, out of titanium. They are the fastest in the world. That could be myth.
We ride all year in Northern Wisconsin.
And use the F word when provoked.
Someone asked for more pictures so...
I'm gonna start a new thread.
Bill in Stevens Point, WI
11-18-09 | 05:27 AM
#85
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11-18-09 | 07:27 AM
#86
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11-18-09 | 07:36 AM
#87
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From: Traverse City Michigan
As an avid enthusiast and a guy who also works in the retail end of the bike buisness I can't honestly say I have ever seen any negative reactions towards Ti bikes in any way besides the cost. Ti is a very viable alternative and a preferred material for some applications. No hate here....
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10-29-12 | 10:02 AM
#88
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From: Northern Wisconsin, USA
Bikes: '80's vintage Dutch framed(Gazelle), Japanese components,set up for city riding and light touring...fenders, rack and bags.
I think someone dissed me back when...
Here's a version of my ride this summer.
Packers!
bill
Here's a version of my ride this summer.
Packers!
bill
10-29-12 | 11:04 AM
#90
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As the proud owner of a Merlin butted ti bike, and someone who wanted one for years, I am not sure why people seem to react to titanium as if it caused leprosy. This is probably one of those frequently addressed issues that people are tired of responding to, but I've never seen it addressed. Please humor me...what do people have against titanium?
10-29-12 | 11:11 AM
#91
Thread Starter
Fat Guy on a Little Bike
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From: Philadelphia, PA
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I think this was all adequately discussed in 2009 
10-29-12 | 11:36 AM
#92
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From: the 904, Jax fl
10-29-12 | 03:33 PM
#93
missing in action
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10-29-12 | 04:25 PM
#94
What??? Only 2 wheels?
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From: Boston-ish, MA
Bikes: 72 Peugeot UO-8, 82 Peugeot TH8, 87 Bianchi Brava, 76? Masi Grand Criterium, 74 Motobecane Champion Team, 86 & 77 Gazelle champion mondial, 81? Grandis, 82? Tommasini, 83 Peugeot PF10
FWIW, Scanpan makes some superb titanium cookware.
Then again there is the ti- version and the unob- version of the metal. I understand that the unob- version is more expensive.
Then again there is the ti- version and the unob- version of the metal. I understand that the unob- version is more expensive.
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10-29-12 | 04:51 PM
#95
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I've got a 2 inch round bar of it about twelve inches long down in the shop. Had it for years. Never knew what do with it. Maybe I'll send it to Mtnbke. He seems to love titanium and I'm sure he'll find a place to put it.
10-29-12 | 05:20 PM
#98
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Originally Posted by EjustE 
Titanium is about as heavy as aluminum and stronger than steel... thus, the desirability (in one sentence)
bzzzz......
Titanium is generally not as strong as steel and not as light as aluminum.
depending on the specific alloys being compared, titanium posseses approx 56% the density of steel and approx twice that of aluminum. stiffness(youngs modulus)for Ti is approx 50% that of common carbon steel alloys while tensile strengths range from 30K-200K psi,with the most exotic Ti alloys approaching or equaling that of many carbon steel alloys but not matching the best contemporary alloyed steels used in bicycle tubings.
Titanium is generally not as strong as steel and not as light as aluminum.
depending on the specific alloys being compared, titanium posseses approx 56% the density of steel and approx twice that of aluminum. stiffness(youngs modulus)for Ti is approx 50% that of common carbon steel alloys while tensile strengths range from 30K-200K psi,with the most exotic Ti alloys approaching or equaling that of many carbon steel alloys but not matching the best contemporary alloyed steels used in bicycle tubings.
That's what you need to know about Ti.
Just a reminder of once was available here.
10-29-12 | 06:31 PM
#99
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From: Kuna, ID
Bikes: 71 Chrome Paramount P13-9, 73 Opaque Blue Paramount P15, 74 Blue Mink Raleigh Pro, 91 Waterford Paramount, Holland Titanium x2
I have had an 04 Litespeed Tuscany for about 6 months, so far I love it.
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1971 Paramount P-13 Chrome
1973 Paramount P-15 Opaque Blue
1974 Raleigh Professional Blue Mink
1991 Waterford Paramount
Holland Titanium Dura Ace Group
Holland Titanium Ultegra Triple Group
1971 Paramount P-13 Chrome
1973 Paramount P-15 Opaque Blue
1974 Raleigh Professional Blue Mink
1991 Waterford Paramount
Holland Titanium Dura Ace Group
Holland Titanium Ultegra Triple Group
10-29-12 | 10:41 PM
#100
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2009
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From: Northern Wisconsin, USA
Bikes: '80's vintage Dutch framed(Gazelle), Japanese components,set up for city riding and light touring...fenders, rack and bags.
Hey Guys,
It's a full moon....
Owooooooooooooooooo!
Ti me down.
bill
It's a full moon....
Owooooooooooooooooo!
Ti me down.
bill