Steve B.

Yes, 1/2 vertical crack right alongside the cable stops on the downtube, parallel to the tube. Baffling place for a crack, never laid over, never crashed. The story was the original paint flaked off after about 2 years of use. Trek - who now owned Lemond, warrantied the frame and re-painted and having originally sold me this frame for $850 as a warranty replacement for a cracked Klein. A year later and the 2nd paint job was flaking off, so seemingly Trek was unaware that titanium requires some special work to keep paint on a titanium and refused to warranty a 2nd time. I then had it painted locally which lasted longer than Trek's version. Crack then developed and Trek refused to warranty as I had it painted not by Trek.

My only point is that Titanium isn't always the miracle metal people portray it. It can be flexy and have a bad initial design. My steel Soma road frame has a stiffer b-bracket. Just the way it goes.

sheddle

just to split the difference, here's an amazing looking Japanese titanium bike that a shop near me has for sale for $2000


guessing back in the day, folks would have considered Panasonic a soulless factory brand, and not a work of art like a Pinarello or something, hah

JohnDThompson 

The design process certainly does, but once you have the lay-up sequence and specifics determined, it's mostly a matter of following directions.

noglider 

It's not a troll thread. I learned a few things. Thanks, folks.

sumgy

No argument there, my steel Concorde Prelude rides at least as smoothly as my Moots.
The breakages of CF I mentioned above, have that brand you mention in common.

Dean V

There isn't a pro rider today that would ride Ti by choice.
Carbon simply out performs it in every way that matters to them.
Doesn't mean that you can't make a great bike from Ti though that will be suited to us lesser cyclists.

aliasfox

I wouldn't say lesser cyclists - I'm sure some pros would appreciate the ride qualities of a titanium bike, just probably not in a race setting.

sumgy

Well especially when they don't have to pay for their bikes.
I am sure I read that a number of ex-Pro's do ride Ti bikes (post racing) and Cadel Evans trained on a titanium Baum while riding for Canyon, while they built him a custom CF frame that fit him better.

Trakhak

Andy Hampsten was quoted in the 1980s as saying that the only thing scarier than descending on his titanium bike was climbing on his steel bike. But that was before aluminum bikes and then CF bikes moved the goalposts.

sumgy

Serotta must have made some sh1t bikes back in the 80's then.

sheddle

yeah, shockingly racers might not want a dedicated purpose-built racing bike when they're retired and not racing


like, I'm certain that titanium bikes are great and all, but I can never get past the "there's a Taiwanese conspiracy to prevent every team from riding Moots Vamoots frames in every race" stuff. the bikes a team uses when they want to win a stage race are not the same bikes someone would use if they want to have a nice century in the countryside lol.

colnago62

I thought Andy rode Land Sharks.

sumgy

Given how bad his bikes apparently were, maybe the team slipped him a real Huffy?

MyTi

Judging by the opinions in this thread the Chinese carbon marketing hype machine has really made people believe that carbon road bikes are some how faster than Ti road bikes...it just goes to show the sheer lack of knowledge in this thread and by BF posters in general.

Dean V

So carbon bikes can be made lighter, more aero, and stiffer that Ti.
Please explain how this does not make for a faster bike?

Jazzguitar

My brother in law has cracked 2 Lemonds, the first at the bottom bracket and, what was the replacement for the first on the downtube near the water bottle bosses. Trek refused to cover the second frame since they no longer deal Lemond so he picked up a Seven. Those Trek Lemonds seemed to be failure prone.

kydeadhead

I'm pretty sure his quote was about descending on a carbon bike being almost as scary as climbing without a carbon bike, this was when he was riding for La Vie Claire on the early LOOK frames. Since he's retired he seems to prefer Ti and steel bikes made by some small builder named Hampsten I believe...

sheddle

Sadly the Hampsten frame building concern has succumbed to the evil Taiwanese plastic marketing machine.

NeilBurt

Back in 1999, titanium's heyday, Trek rebadged a Litespeed Blade-4 for Lance to ride during time trials at the Tour. Well, everyone knows Trek never made a titanium bike, so the howls and jeers that came from the streets of the massive crowds watching him that day was mistook by Lance as applauds, and propelled him on to victory. When told the noise was mockery, the shame put upon Lance and the titanium bike industry was irrevocable.

big john

No, Japanese steel frames were highly regarded back then (early 90s) and there were some true artisan Japanese framebuilders.

Pass on the aluminum fork, however.

big john

My Seven Axiom Race is about as stiff as a CAAD5 I used to have, just brutal and jarring on rough pavement. My steel Gunnar is a soft ride by comparison.

sumgy

I had a Colnago Master that was a jarring ride like that.

big john

The stiffest bike I ever had was a Tesch s22. Oversize heavy gauge steel frame and fork. Perfect for a 220 pound sprinter-type rider but magnified every little crack in the road.

Kimmo 

...Aaand there's another three pages, folks

fuji_owner

I have a Seven Axiom SL titanium bike:



It's the most beautiful thing ever. I'm going to be buried with it.