Hopefully in a few years we'll start seeing bikes made of Ti 425 alloy. It promises to be easier to form and weld versus the currently-used Ti-6-4. Who knows, maybe there will be a resurgence of Ti?

Yep, as I said previously geometry, build quality and setup trumps frame material.

Seems like Moots are doing pretty well and there are a few new Ti upstarts, so maybe there was some other factors with Richey pulling out, hard to tell really

jbucky
https://www.buckyrides.com

I bought my Litespeed in January, 1997 just days short of 20 years ago.

What if there is parity in geometry, build quality, and setup?

You mean they are equally good?

Good? That is so hard to pin down.

What I can say, is that I still hold to the view that CF offers a whole different kind of ride; a different (elevated) level of responsiveness than either steel, aluminum, or titanium, all things being equal (i.e., geometry, build quality, and setup). And, I say this as somebody who has never ridden a bike I did not like!

For the record, the titanium frames I have ridden have been by three builders: Serotta, Lightspeed, Merlin; all superb bikes. But, one of my frames of reference on the CF side is the Willier zero.6, which feels as if you are riding on paper mâché; the other is a Time VXR ProTeam, which not only is super responsive, but is as comfortable and compliant as any steel bike I've ever ridden or am likely to ever ride in my life, I'd imagine.

As far as durability of CF goes, I don't really know what to say, other than that I've never had a CF bike crack up on me. Besides, you don't buy a Ferrari, necessarily, if durability is your primary concern, anyway, right?

Having ridden CF frames, ti frames, steel frames, alloy frames, scandium frames I find CF to just feel "dead".
All that means is that it is subjective.
BUT, regardless of what frame material you ride, if the build quality, geometry and bike setup is poor the bike will ride and handle like a POS.

Agreed! And, I also agree that so much of this is subjective in nature.

Another aspect that, perhaps, should not be overlooked is the purely aesthetic. For example, I just fixed up an old 1972 Raleigh. Of course, this bike in not responsive in the same way that a modern bike is. But it is a thrill to ride, nevertheless, because I've come to appreciate the whole vintage aesthetic--steel lugs, quill stem, etc. We derive pleasure from our bikes in so many different ways. And that is good.

Right, but here you are comparing two very different bikes, on much different tires .... so there is no real "heads-up" Ti-steel comparison. You like your steel bike better Not because of frame material, but because it fits your body, and your comfy wide tires, better.

Everything I have heard about Ti vs steel is that heads-up absolutely identical bikes, the Ti is just a little more compliant and isolates or dampens buzz and bumps... has a little more of all the positive "steel" characteristics---than steel.

obviously it differs from bike to bike and rider to rider---I have ridden Al which was almost unpleasant--vibrating like a dentist's drill over chipseal---and I have ridden Al (a C'dale 6-13) which was like a riding a floating dream on a flying cloud.

Whether the much higher cost of Ti is right for any rider ... and whether the rider gets the Right Ti bike (which you didn't---you should have gotten a duplicate of your favorite steel frame, perhaps) is all uncertain. One of the reasons I don't Seriously consider Ti is that I know that if I didn't get Exactly the right bike it would be a huge investment in not very much. On the other hand, some folks have bought exactly the right Ti bike and find it to be worth every cent.

On yet another hand, if I won the lottery I would have half-a dozen Ti bikes built and keep only my favorites ... or scrap them all and get another half-dozen if none of them was perfect. But then I'd also get a couple CF road frames, a CF F/S MTB, and a stainless touring bike, I think.

Then I'd buy a custom bike-transporting helicopter and put it in my custom helicopter-carrying jet, and fly and/or chopper to wherever I wanted to ride each day. With my permanently-on-staff trainer and mechanic, I would always have the bike and the body to ride wherever, whenever.

Dreaming small doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's all just dreams anyway.

Well not everything.
I dont agree with that summation at all and I own 2 high end ti bikes and 2 steel ones.
One of my steel ones is my Concorde made of PRX (Paris Roubaix steel) and the other is my Pompino.
The Concorde wins hands down on ride quality.
Super smooth compared to my Moots.
The Pomp is made from DN6 (whatever that is) and it rides fine on 30mm tyres, but I would not try to compare it to the Concorde or Moots..

Actually no,not different. Even before swapping the the bigger 28 tires onto the Lemond there just wasn't a mind shattering difference. This Ti is their endurance, comfort frame yet limited in my experience. I can setup several of my steel bikes to be as or more comfortable. So to put it simply. I bought a Ti bike marketed as an endurance, comfort bike. What I found was that it's much cheaper and easier to setup various vintage steel bikes. Maybe others realize this and are opting out of Ti. To me, if the Lynskey did fit the bigger tires and if the carbon fiber fork was more compliant like many of my good steel forks then it would be a keeper and a good buy. Instead, the weight and corrosion resistant pluses of the bike are not enough to sway me. Just not the best choice in my book.

What I read is that you just dont like the bike you bought.

Cool.

What I read is that the weight and corrosion resistant pluses of the bike were not enough to sway him.

Also cool.

If you look at Ti logically, you can see why many of us like Ti.

Ti will never rust like steel. Ti does not deteriorate in the sun like CF or delaminate. Nor is it as delicate and tender as is CF.

Right, all my good steel bikes are not subjected to wet or chemicals and live inside. So corrosion is not an issue. And the one pound or so savings in weight need to come off of me, times 10, before it'll ever matter on the bike. I actually love the Ti bike, it just doesn't pass the common sense test for me. Others, I'm sure, may view it differently.

No, no, I like it just fine. But it's "values" in my mind, are overshadowed by the steep price. One can do so much better for that amount of money in most cases IMHO.

I don't know anything particular about Ritchey or any other company, but there may be simple economic reasons for this.

Ti is expensive to buy and work with and due to various economic factors, US companies can't compete with China companies. If a relatively small company wants to make a distinctive frame or fork, the easiest way for them to do that is to use brazed steel. Titanium has high labor costs, CF has high labor and engineering costs, leaving only aluminum and steel. And of those two, steel is much easier to work with.

I've never had or rode a titanium bike, so you could say I don't know what I'm talking about--but from a cost/benefit standpoint, using Ti to make bicycle frames doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Titanium's main quality is that it is fatigue-resistant. It's a great choice for using to make suspension springs or saddle rails/springs, but it's odd to use for a frame--unless you want a REALLY flexy frame. Which nobody claims to want otherwise?

--------

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.

Not true.
CF frames are basically made from a mould at what is probably only a few $ each.

Not true at all.
Who told you that ti frames are REALLY flexy? Some are most aren't.

--------

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]

Not true. Carbon fiber has to be laid up by hand, which is a labor intensive procedure. That is the difference between good (expensive) and generic (cheap) carbon: the lay up. You can have two seemingly identical frames, made using the same carbon cloth and resin with completely different ride characteristics due to different lay ups.

That is what gives carbon fiber an advantage over metal: it can be anisotropic. While metals are isotropic. Carbon can also be modeled into complex shapes which can alter the ride of the frame.

The biggest downside of carbon fiber is that done right it is expensive.

Agree to disagree. The bulk of CF frames on the market are made in Asia for $.
I am not talking about boutique frames here. I am talking run of the mill Trek and Specialized type companies. If you can buy a single open mould frame from China for $500 then you can guarantee the big companies are having theirs built for a fraction of that per piece.

This is all true.

I own a Lynskey TI bike, and still have several steel bikes, use to own a Scandium, and rode plenty of CF bikes, and right out of the box the TI bike has been the most comfortable and yet plenty stiff for hammering up grades (but my strength to hammer is nowhere near what it was in the 80's! LOL!!). But after injuring my back killing an at fault drunk driver in a car accident I wanted something that would reduce soreness in that area which it does because it mutes road vibration better than any other material, even larger shocks are more muted better whereas with CF and AL it's more amplified, steel is about the same depending on the frame geometry.

Ti is more expensive but if it's made correctly it should out last any other frame material out there except for steel as long as the steel doesn't rust. Like I said I have several steel bikes and none of them are rusting even after 30 years, so if you take care of steel bike that shouldn't be an issue, but with TI you can neglect taking care of the frame and not be worried about rusting, or corroding like AL does; which isn't why I bought TI because I take care of the frame so it doesn't get that blotchy look that TI gets. Also if TI gets scratched (assuming you have brushed ti and not polished ti or matted ti, you can easily take the scratch out, try doing that with any other material, with steel I have to keep up on touching up scratches so it won't develop into a rust area.

The problem with TI is that if it's not welded correctly by an expert (and even some experts have screwed up) it can and will crack along a weld and spread into the tube(s), whereas with steel and AL just about any skilled worker can assemble the tubing and have only a very remote chance of failure. In fact most AL frames today are all done robotically, even the lower end steel are made robotically. Aluminium can (no pun intended) and does fail at welds but this more of the fault of the material and not the weld job itself.

The one thing about TI, steel, and AL is that you cannot take your thumb and index finger and squeeze the top tube and see it slightly bend inward like you can with CF, which is with with CF you have to be careful installing stuff that it doesn't crush, so you have to mindful of torque limits.

The odd thing about the list of TI builders that the OP gave, one of which is the Motobecane, I cannot find one incident of one of their Ti road bikes frame failing (maybe someone here can check again for me), there have been several Ti MTB failures as there have been with other much more expensive Ti makers, but not a road frame. This might be due to the fact that the Moto uses a bit thicker Ti tubing which makes their bikes a tad heavier than other Ti bikes, their listed weights is off by about a pound according to what I've read from owners and from an owner that I personally know. The guy I know has the Dura Ace highest end Moto that was offered, and his is about 1/2 pound heavier than my Lynskey Peloton which was the entry level frame, and my bike has mostly 105 on it and heavier Shimano RS500 wheels vs his Mavic Ksyrium Elite, but not sure the exact model. But the Moto is the best bang for the buck with Lynskey entry level frame being 2nd best bang for the buck.

So if you're looking to get a Ti bike but are afraid of the expense than look at models of Motobecane and chose one in your price point.

There is another off brand, I think Ribble, who now sells a low costing TI bike, but theirs come from some Chinese maker whereas the Moto is made in Taiwan by ORA which is very well known Asian Ti manufacture worldwide with very high quality control standards. I almost bought the Moto after riding my friends but when I went to order one they were out of stock and after waiting over a year and a half for them to get it back in stock I went with the Lynskey thinking Bikes Direct was no longer going to be selling TI bikes.

How does one express an opinion on what they like best, yet still own all the bikes you list in your profile? Make a stand, man!

"steel is real" ...'nuf said.

Variety is the spice of life!