here is my custom Frame TI bike - done. Black Sheep bikes made the frame, Mike (at Aberdeen Bikes in Chelsea, MI) and I did the build.





currently riding around Kunming China (a WHOLE 'nuther story, riding in a big chinese city), getting ready for a tour of Yunnan Province.

Nice rack! (I've always wanted to say that without getting slapped.)

Very very cool!

the rack is a cro-mo nickle plated Nitto 'campee'. think it looks good with the ti. front rack is an IRD stainless steel 'himalayan series'.

the frame geometry is on the touring bike side of a typical cyclocross bike, with a taller head tube/sloping top tube. This is designed for touring pulling an extrawheel trailer, which i LOVE. THe rear rack is set back for pannier/heel clearance (wheelbase is shorter than a touring bike), though I would only move the panniers from the trailer to the bike in response to some kind of trailer failure.

since i always use the extrawheel, I wanted a bike that is zippier when unloaded than the trek 520 I was using. Also wanted discs - long steep rutted dirt road descents were killing my hands, I'm a guitar player, need the hands in good shape. I knew there would be a lot of cobblestone and steep here in China.

the bike gets a lot of attention here in China. I carry it up and down 7 flights of stairs instead of leaving it parked in the stairwell locked to the railing. glad it weighs under 25 pounds, complete with those racks, pedals, STOUT wheels ( delgado rims, straight gauge spokes and heavy schwalbe marathon XR tires).

drivetrain is XTR, headset and hubs are chris king, brakes avid bb7 road. I finished this bike only 1 day before disconnecting the S&S couplers and packing it into the 26x26x10" airline box. Packing it was an exercise in 'Hmmmm, wonder how I'm going to get all this bike into such a small space' but I finally figured it out.

this bike rides (and shifts) like butter. VERY happy with the geometry. and the ride is...... did I say like butter?

thanks for looking.

off-the-shelf litepeed siena i picked up on sale yesterday and stripped decals off of it last night.


have lots of little ideas about upgrades but wanna ride it for a while first. aireone saddle, 105 guts with ultegra RD, kysirium equipe wheels.

first non aluminum bike. pretty excited about it so far.

Just ride that thing. You'll love the snap and speed the frame has. The first moment you get out of the saddle and hammer on it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Here's an updated photo of my CK now with full Ultegra SL and Easton EC90 fork.

anyone got any built up pics of the Lynskey Household 330?

I picked this frame up from a shop where it had been hanging on display since '06. Full Rival, handbuilt DT Swiss 240s hubs/RR1/1 rims.


Yes, there's a lot of spacers. I'll be taking one, maybe two out soon (and no, the "custom" frame was not custom made for me - for someone much more flexible apparently).

JB

planet x frames are on sale for 900 bones at nashbar...welded by lynskey

Not available in my size.

Here's my Lynskey Houseblend R230



After the pic was taken I lowered the stack height by 10 mm. A bit of a writeup here: https://callmepokey.blogspot.com/2009...s-arrived.html

As (bad) luck would have it, I was in a crash a couple of weeks later. The Lynskey fared much better than I did.
https://callmepokey.blogspot.com/2009...oing-well.html
I'm off the bike for probably another few weeks. But the Lynskey will be patiently waiting for me.

Nice bike! Funny. You named your blog article "My midlife crisis has arrived!" I sorta felt that way when I got my bike too. Hope you heal quickly.

beautiful

absolutely beautiful build.

Lynskey R330 w/ 09 SRAM Rival...16.8lbs

I am hoping somebody can assist me with this. I have a COLNAGO CT1 Titanium. It is older bike ~2002 I think. I generally love the ride, feel, handling of the bike, but recently in the last couple of months it has produced a truely nasty grinding/growning sound from the bottom bracket area. I ride with a large group most saturdays - everyone can hear it. I have replaced the grease in the BB twice, it is ok for only a few days and then returns. My LBS says it is "common to Titanium frames" and it is the sound of the Titanium BB thread on the Aluminium of the BB cups. Can anyone confirm this is true? Can I do anything about it? LBS says "nothing you can do it will always return" therefore "would you like to buy this carbon frame"?? Can anyone help?

Never heard of that before. Also, I've never read of anyone here complaining about it. Not to say it doesn't happen, I've just never come across a similar circumstance.

BEAUTIFUL bike, btw.

Nice ride! My Ti with Alu BB cups never makes any noise and hasn't in 10 years.

I would suggest trying a different BB.

FWIW I have 5 Ti frames, and have run at least 6 different BB/crank configurations. I've had noise in the BB area on several occations.

First off, this is not always a BB problem. I've had lose crank bolts, loose pedals, bad bearing in the pedal, loose crank bolt, and finally loose/dirty BB interface.

I would try going through every bolt on the bike with a torque wrench and make sure they are all tight. The deal with a Ti bike is the metal is harmonic (or whatever) and can make small noises louder and make it hard to find where they are coming from. If torquing all the bolts does not due the trick Remove the BB and clean the threads on both the BB and the frame. I mean REally clean. A single grain of sand or grit can drive you bonkers making little clicking noises under load. Lastly you may have killed the bearings in your BB. They might feel smooth by hand but unerload is a different story.

my final recommendation is get a new shop. Anybody that tells you to scrap a Ti frame because they all click in the BB is a schister and cannot be trusted to fix your problem. Go spend some money on a torque wrench (actually you will need two - a big one and a small one) and fix the problem yourself.

Good luck.

Perhaps some plumber's Teflon tape on the BB threads might help.

And for what it's worth, I've periodically heard creaking noises from my Litespeed's BB/crank area. However I had that problem when I used the same crankset on a different bike, and in my case it is a sign that the crank arm / adjustable cup needs to be tightened, rather than something being common to all ti bikes.

Nice bike!

+1 Exactly what I was going to say. I use teflon tape on the BB threads and have never had any creaks.

Check carefully for hairline cracks under the BB area. Hopefully this isn't the problem, but I had this happen on an aluminum frame and the creaking was awful.