But that's how it came from Bianchi, I wouldn't want to mess with that!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Q9OHLA5zjk...Bianchi96b.jpg


The wheels are Mavic Cosmic Elites, I think I got them in 2001 or so.

If someone is in the market for a great TI bike at a fantastic deal see: https://lynskeyperformance.com/r350-...ork-all-sizes/

:love:That's a beautiful bike! Nicely done.:thumb:

Also, what fork is that?

Thanks, it's chinese open mould carbon:
NEW FULL CARBON FORK UD Rigid STREIGH 700C ROAD BIKE FIXED GEAR 1-1/8" 28.6MM | eBay

I already have a frameset from them so I just contacted them and asked if they had a tapered fork.

Year 2000 Litespeed Ultimate
 

Year 2000 Litespeed Ultimate

Only ridden a little so far - just got it built up last week.
Ultegra 6800 mechanical, Merlin custom Duraace/Mavic wheels.
The stem is kinda dorky but I wanted to be able to move it around some until I find what works best.
The forward seatpost is due to too many years on the tri bike. :)

I agree, nicely done, though personally I wouldn't have bought a generic Chinese fork but that's just me.

I've put over 20k miles on my 2001 model. Wore through 3 pairs of wheels, 2 compoment groups and 6 saddles.
It's likely the last road bike I ever need.

http://www.velospace.org/files/l05h4j3.jpg

Name brand carbon forks are made in China anyway.. at five times the cost.

You must be hard on your bikes. I have 50K on my Carbon Bianchi and the original wheels are still like new, on the second saddle and have only just now replaced the cassettes and crank. I could have just replaced the crank's chain rings, but I wanted to swap to a compact crank. Shifters are still like new.

It's a titanium frame, I ride in all weather, never wash my bike except riding in rain.
The way a bike should be used... not a fair weather pansy bike.

50k mile? on a carbon bike? since when? how many miles per week?

I put about 6K a year on it for the first 5 years but probably half that for the remaining years as daddy duties have cut into my rides the past years. Its seen plenty of rain and some snow, but it always gets a thorough clean and re grease when it does.

How in the world did you manage to go through 2 component groups in just 20k miles? that's only 10k per group! I've got over 160k miles on just one component group and it still works fine. And 3 pairs of wheels in 20k? I average 30k on just one wheel set and that's when I use to ride a lot in mountains.

Brand name CF forks made in china have a much higher quality control and engineering, the generics have below average engineering and very little if any quality control. In addition to all of that brand name have warranties backed up by western laws, generics claim they have warranties but rarely back them up and they don't have to comply to western laws. 5 times the cost? I'll gladly pay that much more rather than risk my limb(s) or life to some fork that could have potential problems.

Does three tubes of titanium count? Here my mid 90's bike I rode quite a bit. Chrome moly forks & rear triangle.
I built it up 600 with a Record crank. I had very good luck with Vittoria Corsa sewups. Good riding on long rides, but its quite flexible. Raleigh probably missed the mark with this frame.
I'm done with 39/53 so its retired as is.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...pssx7xv5ag.jpg

Road racing, commute, CX, off-road riding.. it's a titanium frame, not a sissy road-only bike.

And how many brand name CF fork or non-brand name CF forks from China have you ridden personally?
How many broken Chinese CF forks have you seen or experienced?
Personally, working in bike shops over two decades; I've seen more brand name CF fork fail than Chinese made CF forks failure... ratio of 2:1.
I've had LOOK, TREK, Colnago CF forks fail on me during rides... I've been using a $69 Chinese CF fork I bought from eBay since 2008.. still riding it.

Does it make you feel better inside with the 'my bike is not a sissy bike' comment?

You are still going through groupsets 16 times faster than rekmeyata and 5 times faster than I have. However depending on what exactly we are talking about, I could have gotten more life out of my cassettes and chain rings if I needed to and I really more just wanted more climbing gears for the Colorado mountains instead of the Virginia flats I used to ride when I bought the bike. My shifters are still excellent.

Are you counting race crashes which destroyed components as 'wearing' them out?

Whatever applies to you does not necessarily apply to everyone.. stop assuming that your usage of components applies to everyone else.

Its not about assuming. I can't for the life of me imagine anyone wearing out components at the rate you are doing and the 'not a sissy bike' answer doesn't help me understand why. Seriously what are you doing to them? Or is your Mega-watt power just too much for the components?

Hey, it's not my responsibility to explain everything that you can't imagine...
Just ride your bike the way you do and be happy that you've not wearing out your equipment as much.

Have you at least thought about how you could improve the longevity of your gear or are you satisfied with destroying it at your current rate with money to spare in the cycling budget?

i've never done CX stuff which like MTB'ing I'm sure beats up stuff (I use to MTB ride off road aggressively but not race) but I did use road race on that Suntour Superbe stuff that has the 160k miles, and it still works just fine.

I haven't road any Chinese generic forks nor will I ever, I did have a friend that had one and it broke on him, there has been several instances at my LBS, which contradicts what you said, no surprise there, according to my mechanic, of them having to repair bikes that had broken generic forks that they replaced with name brand forks, even broken generic frames that they had to sell them a new frame, and there has been people on various forums like this one that have had the same issues. Regardless if you accept that or not, the question becomes would you accept paying for something because it's cheaper than main line stuff knowing very little about how it was made, or the quality control, or the quality itself, with NO warranty whatsoever? Even if the Chinese company that made your CF product says sure they'll warranty it just send it back you'll have to pay about $200 for shipping, so $200 for shipping plus the cost of the fork could have bought you a Enve 2.0! Then you have to trust the company that they'll fix it and send it back. I assume you would prefer to save money on a generic no name not for import into America and buy a helmet with those same conditions?

You do what you want, of course you will anyways but that's fine, I personally would never buy something new with that sort of risks that I mentioned above, again, I said me personally.

I don't need to, cycling is just something I'm willing to spend $$ on.. plenty of budget for me.

If you've never done CX or off-road riding on your road bike.. then perhaps there are situations that you don't know how much wear/stress can be put on cycling equipment. I do with my road bike what mos wouldn't do.. but that's just me.
Warranty for Chinese product is mostly non-existent.. more than often they just send replacement without question, no need to ship item back to CN.
Quality of CF forks from CN is just on par with name-brand that cost 5 times as much.
Now we're talking about helmets? I don't have experience with CN helmets... I can't say if they are inferior.. AFAIK, GIRO and Bell both have helmets made in CN... but let's stay on topic, if you want to discuss this further, start a new thread.

Still you could buy better equipment with the same amount of money spending much less often if you didn't destroy your gear. And I have had had one fork fail on me, but it was after a car ran it (and me) over. When your forks fail for you, is it due to an impact or are you just riding down the road and it fails?

I never said I destroy my gear.. stop assuming that I destroy parts before changing my components.

Sometimes CF forks are stressed during transport and fail during rides without impact.
Sometimes CF forks fail just because of poor bonding.
When my CF forks failed, I get a new one that's not the same model/brand.

I don't really think you destroy your gear. I think you fabricate stories.

Carbon Bicycle Forks: Cautions, Facts and Misconceptions | IsolateCyclist

I simply do not believe that you have had a Look, and a Trek, and a Colnago fork just fail on you for the above reasons. The probability of that happening would make the lottery odds seem like a good bet.

Yes, I fabricate stories; if that makes you happy.

What you don't believe and reality that you are not aware of can often be the same category.

Have yourself a titanium bike? post it here. If not, move on.

They have built my carbon bike frame, which has 5K+ miles and 2 crashes on it and holding well, so I decide to give a 2nd shot when they were $400 cheaper than the ENVE I was looking at.
I *may* replace it in the future, but only after the etap and some Reynolds Assault SLG :)