DJH86

Hi Guys,

Looking at a used Litespeed Ultimate Dura-Ace. Keen to hear people's experience of Titanium frames, in particular Litespeed. Also, curious for some opinion on this item's pricing.

I like that Litespeed is made domestically, this is a personal draw for me.

Some context: I am going from a mid 90's Moser. Starting to look at a modern road bike for some weekend work and longer rides (50 - 100 miles per session)

eBay listing title: Litespeed Ultimate Large Titanium Road Bicycle Shimano Dura-Ace Carbon Wheel
eBay item #: 224258660681

Thanks Guys

Litespud

Ultimate Disc + Dura-Ace + the cheapest wheel option lists for ~$7500 on the Litespeed site. This one looks like a bargain at ~$3800. I think used Ti is a great used option. Barring trauma, which is usually easy to detect, there’s not a lot that can go wrong with a Ti bike from a good manufacturer. My daily for the last 17 years has been an eBay-bought used LS Vortex. It’s been perfect - ~55,000 miles later. I would have no hesitation buying a used LS on-line. I guess my only reservation with the Ultimate is that it probably wouldn’t be my first choice for longer rides - as I understand it (and acknowledging that I’ve never ridden one), it’s built stiff with aggressive geometry for racing

shelbyfv

That looks like a nice bike and reasonably priced. Don't see how you could go wrong if it fits. I'm very happy with my Ti Lynskey but it's nowhere near as fancy.

DJH86

grrr... decisions, decisions ... hehe

veganbikes

I love titanium, A LOT!!!!!!! I have three Ti bikes at the moment and plans for another one when I can afford it.

My first one and my road baby is a Foundry Chilkoot loaded with Ultegra Di2 and eeBrakes and some hand built White Industries hub based wheels.
My second is a Salsa Timberjack Ti with XT and some SLX and a nice dropper (which I am currently getting working)
My third is another MTB a older Habanero 26" with XT and LX (pre-SLX) and some lovely Paul components parts in 3DV. It was technically used at some point but Mark cleaned it up and inspected it and is still supporting it should something go awry.

Litespeed was an early Ti manufacturer and still is going to this day. From what I know they generally make a decent quality product. Used bikes can be OK if in good condition and well made when it was made but you do lose out on any warranties which can be helpful sometimes. However properly made titanium frames can be quite long lasting. One of the many reasons I love the material.

However if I were you I would skip the Dura-Ace find a new Ultegra bike and you will love it. Dura-Ace is what it is but honestly not really worth it unless you are racing and even then Ultegra doesn't weight that much more and you don't loose out on a whole lot with it. You probably won't notice the difference riding and if your riding buddies care that you chose to get the better frame over the Dura-Ace then you can ditch them and find ones that don't. I wouldn't really want to change my Ultegra Di2 for anything else, it has been pretty flawless aside from a major FD malfunction which was covered under warranty (and could have happened to a Dura-Ace one as well).

I will state any mixing of materials in the actual frame I am not keen on and I know they (Litespeed) and others have done it with carbon seat stays in titanium lugs. It is more prone to issues as they are dissimilar and can expand and contract at different rates and temperatures. I will also say I am not a fan of threaded stuff if I can avoid it. I mean if the right frame comes around yeah I will jump on it but I do prefer the standard 1 1/8 threadless standard it is easy to find stems and headsets and such in higher quality and I can more easily remove bars if I need to.

DJH86

Thanks guys - some food for thought, nice analysis. I will continue my search on the second-hand market ... My heart is set on titanium though - timeless

Agree with @veganbikes comment about dissimilar materials - have read further about the problems this can cause.

rekmeyata

I love titanium, it's smoother riding then even steel, which you know the mantra, steel is real? ok, well I have plenty of steel bikes and titanium has them beat hands down, not even close actually!

The only thing I would suggest for you is going with the person that created and started Litespeed, I would, and did, buy a bike from Lynskey, Litespeed is now owned by a corporation and their customer service is not all that great from reports I've heard over the years on forums, even a bike shop in another town from where I live that sole Litespeed and went out of business told me a week before they closed their shop that Litespeed gave them all sorts of grief on warranty issues, thankfully they didn't have that many issues but when there was one it was like going to the dentist office and getting a tooth pulled. Anyway, I would go with the original creator and genius behind Litespeed and get a Lynskey instead, Lynskey is the grandfather of titanium bikes in the world, and he started out making titanium stuff for NASA, and he created the technique while the owner of Litespeed used today by every TI manufacture on assembling/welding a TI frame; just my opinion. All of those credits that Litespeed takes on their history they give on their website are ALL Lynskey innovations!!!

veganbikes

Steel is real, ti is fly, wood is good, bamboo is for you but aluminum and carbon don't rhyme and therefore shouldn't be ridden. Though I will say carbon forks are OK because it is only the frame material that needs to rhyme.

The reason I wanted Ti for an MTB frame is partially comfort but also I can beat on it and don't have to worry about chipped paint or rust or corrosion.

Atlas Shrugged

Sometimes the myth of titanium gets a bit much. People have been welding and manufacturing with titanium since the early '50s and bicycles were produced by companies such as Teledyne since the early '70s and mass-produced on a contractor basis by Sandvik since the '80s. The only real difference with titanium welding is it needs to be done in an inert environment, so that means TIG Welding and back purging the tubes. Why it became popular in the '80s was the availability of the tubing became much easier not because some artisan was able to unlock the secrets of the metal like an alchemist. I am a moderately capable welder and found titanium easier to weld than common materials such as thin wall aluminum. If you want titanium, go for it, if it hasn't cracked in the first few years of its life you are good to go as its fatigue life is virtually unlimited regardless of who built it.

rekmeyata

So what you're saying is Lynskey was just another flunky in the titanium business of bicycles.

He innovated the cold tubing manipulation process for titanium, this reduced cracking of the metal which is now how ALL titanium manufacturers do it; I never said he invented the Titanium bicycle frame.

Not sure about the "myth" you spoke up, never heard any myths, perhaps you can enlighten us with those myths.

rekmeyata

Carbon fiber forks are ok just don't get into a fork fight with a steel fork because you'll lose; I personally stay away from fork fights.

veganbikes

Agreed. However the problem is most steel forks look out of place on a lot of bikes that aren't steel especially with newer tapered and oversized steerers unless some deep custom stuff or was made for the bike. Aluminum forks look fine but don't have a great ride quality.

Atlas Shrugged

You are putting words in my mouth regarding the Lynskey family being flunkies, not at all and given their experience I would consider them a excellent company and one of the few that can bulk produce titanium bicycles and make a profit in North America. However you were the one using words like Genius, Grandfather and developer of welding/manufacturing techniques used by all titanium frame manufacturers in the world. The marketing hyperbole about cold tubing manipulation is nothing special or innovative. To quote “The fabrication of titanium product forms into complex shapes is routine for many fabricators. These shops recognised long ago that titanium is not an exotic material requiring exotic fabrication techniques. They quickly learned that titanium is handled much like other high performance engineering materials, provided titanium’s unique properties are taken into consideration.”

I have worked with titanium in many forms and have welded, fabricated and machined with it and yes there is a learning curve but nothing an evening of reading and few hours of practice cant overcome for someone with metal fabrication experience. Of all the things people have manufactured out of titanium a bicycle frame is fairly simple. Making a quality bicycle frame out of steel or titanium is not that difficult however marketing and selling it while making a profit is the hard part.

rekmeyata

Some of the reason to is that forks made of Titanium or Aluminum just never worked out well on road bikes. Ti and Al was too flexy without making a bulky and ungraceful looking fork; not to mention price for a TI fork would cost more than a CF fork. My problem is I'm not so sure if I believe all the reasons they tell us because it didn't seem to concern Sean Kelly who won the TDF on a Vitus small diameter aluminum bike with A AL fork! And todays CF forks are larger then Kelly's AL fork was, so what is the deal? Price? There are a lot of road CF forks that cost $400 and up, I doubt a Ti fork would exceed what those cost. Aerodynamics? they can't make TI fork blades thin enough to cut air like they can with CF forks? Not sure if that's true or not.

Maybe someone else can shed more light on this.

Atlas Shrugged

Titanium is about half the density and half the stiffness of high tensile steel so to get a fork with equivalent stiffness and not add thickness and weight you would need to increase the diameter of the tubing. A bike frame has triangles and has natural stiffness and strength due to it's design. A fork don't. This introduces clearance problems as well as buckling issues. Titanium is not as springy which would give the fork a softer feel which would also need to be accounted for. Another challenge is availability of appropriate material as custom drawn tubes are expensive. In mass production scenarios titanium has very poor economies of scale which is the inverse of carbon. The titanium forks which are available are approximately double the price and weight of a carbon fork.

rekmeyata

Interesting, but wouldn't a steel fork weigh more than a TI fork would?

veganbikes

Not always. Depending on how it is constructed one could be lighter. Generally though for modern stuff carbon forks make the most sense. The reason I would consider steel on a modern tapered bike would be for touring or front cargo purposes. Ti would have to look really good or be in the same vein as the steel fork

rekmeyata

My touring bike has a steel fork, but lately, they've come out with CF touring forks with mounts for panniers. One company in particular called Fyxation has developed forks that can be used for touring, but there is a small issue, each side of the fork can only handle 6 1/2 pounds for a total of 12 pounds, that's not a lot of gear for a long term touring person.

veganbikes

You might also look at Cinq, they make a little sturdier touring fork out of carbon and a tapered version for bikepacking/gravel bikes. The mounting for it seems like a better construction for better weight holding but then again I wouldn't really want carbon for heavy duty touring.

Litespud

That's my experience - I have two forks for my Litespeed, a straight-legged steel Gunnar and a CF Reynolds Ouzo Pro. Apart from the exactly 1 lb weight difference, the legs on the Gunnar just look too skinny against the slightly oversize tubes of the LS. The deeper curved legs of the Ouzo look better, both more in keeping with the tube width, and the curves matching the curved seatstays of the LS. The Ouzo is also better at suppressing road buzz, although I don't know if this is a result of the curved vs straight design, the CF vs steel construction, or both. For all these reasons - weight, look, comfort - the steel Gunnar lives in my parts box as a spare