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Seen a bike i fancy but it is Ti.
Been the owner of a Ti bike i lusted over for years and it broke/killed my desire for expensive bikes.
So a bit unsure.
Has anyone owned a Ti bike that hasn't broke ?
Just curious 🤔
I've had 4, 1 cracked (after about 10 years), the other 3 got sold.
Had 4, broke none. I only weighed bout 70kg though and was a “light” rider (as in I didn’t rely on suspension to get me through stuff)
Had 2 previous Titanium bikes neither of which broke.
One of my current bikes is Titanium and hasn't broken yet
Wife has 3 Titanium bikes and none have broken yet
It's our favourite frame material and I have no cause for concern.
1 year 1000 miles of commuting and my ti on one commuter hasn't cracked yet.
All bike break eventually. If you want it fixed you can get a ti bike fixed. It's probably more expensive to fix than steel, but there are a bunch of folk on here who have broken Steel, carbon and alloy frames.
I've s apples two alloy hardtail frames. One hit a rock hard right in the down tube when I crashed. One I rode down steps loads and the head tube cracked. An unlucky crash and riding outside of what the bike is designed for would kill most frames.
Had a ti456 - fine in the 3 years I owned it
I have an on one ti cross which these days is my commute bike in very regular use. 20 years old this year.
Bought a cracked Kinesis road bike and got it fixed. 5 years of happy use on the fixed frame.
90kg but quite light on my bikes for a semi big lad.
Anything I bought now that was none full Sus (road/touring/gravel/MTB) would probably be steel these days. Just seems the sensible choice.
Only ever had one, a Singular Pegasus, it wasn't broken after about 7 years. No idea now as I sold it.
I had a titanium Saracen Kili Ultra MTB in about 1997, that lasted many years of XC racing before I sold it (still in perfect condition).
Must have had it about 10 years, maybe more.
Great bike, super light.
I have 2 - Chinese/ Taiwan - Charge Cooker had since 2015 and Dawes 3ima since 2016.
The Cooker has had the hardest life including a 120 mm for a few years.
Both still OK.
Kona hei hei stolen didn't break.
Ti Bontrager broke at a weld.
Lite speed road bike chain stays split, repaired by Litespeed and still working.
Litespeed mtb still going strong.
Indy fab still going strong.
Partners van Nicholas split chainstay frame replaced still going strong.
I have also had steel Kona Unit and the frame broke on that but only after 9 years of daily commuting.
I think it's more about the design and quality of the materials and construction rather than which type of metal.
I currently have three that I haven't broken. Two of them are now 16 years old.
I've owned, and sold, another two. One of them is still going but I've no idea of the whereabouts of the other.
Airborne Lucky Strike
Bought it second hand, rode if for a decade, sold it. I know the buyer and he's still riding it.
Cove Hummer never broke despite my best efforts. Thrashed that thing.
Cotic Soda certainly felt like it would’ve if I’d kept it longer than a few months.
And some Van Nicholas thing didn’t break either.
Ive got a ti Reilly Gradient. About 5 yrs old and done lots of big events.
Got a ti Moots cx bike. 11 yrs old and still my fave riding bike.
Mrs B has a ti Moots gravel bike. 7 yrs old and totally brilliant in every way.
Mrs B has a ti Salsa el mariachi. Set up monstercross and about 8+ yrs old.
They all get used properly and are all fine.
Given the service that neilneville has had from Van Nicholas (via Planet X), I'd be giving their products top billing if I was buying Ti today.
I have a Van Nicolas Ti Road bike. I’ve owned it for 5+ years and it’s still going strong :o)
3 Moots, 2 Indie Fabs, 2 Serottas, 10 Sevens, 3 Merlins.
All great bikes and never broke any of them.
I still own 3 of the above (the oldest is 12 years old, the youngest is 8). I know the whereabouts of 6 (the oldest of which is 23 years old) and they are still going strong.
Buy right, buy once.
I've got two titanium bikes.
1993 M-Trax (very rarely ridden now but was ridden a lot back in the day) They had a reputation for breaking (bonded tubes popping out of the lugs) but mine is fine.
2013 (I think) Salsa El Mariachi. My XC race bike, ridden infrequently but hard, I'm a 24hr singlespeed racer.
I've broken one steel frame, three aluminium and three carbon, and stripped a BB thread on a magnesium one. (Marin's warranty is excellent, would definitely have another. Yeti's really isn't, never getting one again) If I had the money all my bikes would be titanium
Owned 3 broken 2
Lynskey 456 owner, bought it on eBay, has a dent or two but not broken. It's my sons commuter now. I won't let him do anything gnarly on it but that's more about the fork than the frame.
Mine is still going strong. Can’t claim it’s proven to be worth the money over a steel one… it probably hasn’t been, but it wears its scrapes and scratches well and has had no cracks.
Had one (ti 456) broke one.... as you may have recently seen px /van Nicholas have been superb so a Titus Goldrush is on its way at very little cost to me.
Broke 2 aluminium frames (marin wolfridge and kinesis max light Pro) had one warranty replacement, anda discount offered on a replacement for the other. So my experience is, if you are the original owner, warranties are honoured.
I've an Enigma Etape with 15k miles on it that hasn't broken - yet.
Had my Laverack 3 years and 5k (winter) miles and I've not broken it yet at 85kg
Owned 17 (I think), broke none.
My ragley td-1 (Lynskey built) hasn't broken. It should have. I've broken headset cups . Smashed up pace rigid forks.
'Had my Laverack 3 years and 5k (winter)
miles and I’ve not broken it yet at
85kg'
Yeah those Laverack's are a bit chunky but at lead to they don't break... 🙃
I think every single Ti bike in my riding group has now broken except one of the kinesis and the Dialled back in the day.
Must be into double figures now, not cheap bikes and all ridden hard.
I wouldn't go near the stuff.
I have a Kingdom Vendetta hard tail and a Hex full susser. Both going strong after several years.
3 in our house, 2 not broken.
OG Cotic Soda. Spanked that for well over a decade, inc jumps & drops.
Missus has a Van Nic Euros roadie. 11 years old now, not had the hardest life, but not babied either.
the one that did break was a sample gravel frame that cracked on its second Dirty Reiver due to a slightly undersized seat post. Repaired by the local moto exhaust factory and has been fine these last 6 years, inc another 4 Reivers.
They’re not “forever” bikes, but look after them and they can last and are fixable when they do break. Just like steel, or within limits, carbon.
I still ride my 22 year old Airborne Lancaster. Although it started off life as a 26inch mountain bike, it now serves as a flat bar gravel bike with 650b wheels and 47mm gravel tyres and an eXotic rigid carbon fork. As another example of longevity, it also has the original Chris King headset including bearings. Do I have the oldest Ti bike still being used regularly?
Just found a crack on mine. 10 years old, probably 40,000 miles on it.
Ti Waltlys x 3
Broken Ti Waltlys x 0
Custom's probably your best bet anyway if you're going ti, tell them you want whatever and it's for a 130kg rider and let them figure it out.
116 kg
Owned 10 years
Only bike for everything (middle aged, sans gnar)
Salsa Fargo
Looks pretty much the same as I bought it (Charlie recommendation - remember the one about how many good days on your bike you had left)
a walty for 3 years and a Titan cycles since 2
no issues, and I'm 100+kg
only used for bike packing though
Only bike for everything (middle aged, sans gnar)
Salsa Fargo
that is what broke for me. 3 years old.
Anyone owned Ti bike and NOT broke it YET.
There... fixed the title for you.
Leading question?
This needs a poll.
Frames you have owned that have broken:
Steel
Many owned, one crash damaged frame (fair enough).
Aluminium
Owned a couple, one warranty replacement weld crack.
Titanium
Owned one (8 years), no break
Carbon
One carbon swing arm, broke it.
I think that pretty much sums up all bikes. Ride them enough and eventually it's going to break. Most people on here ride a lot and break frames and components. What separates the better frames is they last better and the manufacturers stand by the warranty.
BTW, I asked planet x what I should do with the 456 frame today, expecting to send it back. They said normally VN would give them a credit note and for that they wound require it back. However as they don't currently use VN for anything I could hang it on my wall. Ie, it's px themselves picking up this cost, so in my book px are as good as VN, or better.
My Planet X Tempest had done 7000+ miles in two years
No signs of any cracks when I checked it over before selling it, all the stories about Ti cracking did make me wary about keeping it any longer than 2 years
Gone back to Carbon now and have had a carbon bike before that I’d done 18’000 miles on and was still in good condition when I sold it
out of the small amount of bikes i have owned, i have only had 3 failures.
1 specialized sirius. cracked chainstay.
1 orange sub zero. snapped seat tube.
1 Ti fargo. cracked dropout weld.
Ribble CRG Ti..... Four years, daily commuting for two... Decent (proper) usage the last two years. No dramas.
Mk1 DB Alpine.... Steel is real and all that.... 20+ Transalp tours plus lots of private bashing. Washed it once and discovered a crack in the steerer/downtube interface. According to DB only the second one to fail. Fixed for 20€ and a couple of joints at the local frame builder.
Owned two ti roadbikes. Sold one, the other split it's non-driveside chainstay. Now on the indoor trainer. Airborne btw.
I've never broke any other bikes apart from an original Voodoo that I crashed head-on into a tree stump.
9 Ti bikes down the last 25+ years. Still have 3. One of those cracked & repaired under warranty (now hanging on the wall). Two still used.
Good warranty is king for Ti. Good steel post 29er/CEN has caught up massively tho' especially as a lot of Ti manufacturers only now use straight gauge tubing. So that and chinese manufacture means probs wont get another Ti.
1 owned
0 snapped
had two ti bkes. first one got nicked, the other got sold on. so no breakages 🙂
only broke alu bikes, an Orange E3, and a cannondale, though that was worn through with my heel so not a break per se.
(I'm not counting the two old steel peugeot ATB's from the 80's)
Kona Raijin from 2012 still ridden daily 👍Made by Lynskey should have broke a long time ago according to some of the " experts" on here 🤔
20 years old this year 😳Cove Hummer made by Litespeed , I've ridden the Kamikaze WC course in Mammoth, Whistler bike park , Morzine , Lake Tahoe plus other iconic locations on this and still in one piece 👍
You should ask this question on a forum where people actually ride their bikes.
Tinbred I bought from someone on here at least 15 years ago, and it was far from new then - still going strong.
In the last 40 years of cycling (don't count my obsession with BMX before that) I have only had one frame that broke and that was a Specialized Stumpjumper M2 hard tail frame from the 90s which was old when I got it.
Had frames in all common materials including Scandium.
Annoyingly I've never broken a frame, despite owning a Mk1 Nukeproof Mega and a Mk1 Cotic Hemlock!
I'd love a Ti hardtail 🙂
Enigma Evoke Mk 1 moved on a year ago at 7 years old and about 10000 miles
Replaced by an Enigma Evoke Mk 3 which has done about 2500 miles in its first year
Enigma Etape set up as a winter/commuter bike. 7 years old and about 6000 miles in all weathers
Stanton Sherpa Mk 3, 8 months old, which has been ridden all through the winter. About 1200 miles
Stanton Sherpa Mk 2 frame with a complicated history. About 4 years old and about 2000 miles in a previous guise, but just rebuilt as a lightweight bling bike.
Most miles around the Dark Peak and I am no ballerina, though the MTB riding is pretty tame. None cracked so far, all a pleasure to ride. Evoke Mk1 probably the least satisfactory due to an unwise wheel choice.
Scandvik made Hummer, sold it before the gouges made by the terrible chain-suck those bikes had good finally get all the way through the chain-stay. That was the only Ti bike I've owned, but the material wouldn't put me off buying another.
Owned lots of ti frame, forks, prototypes, customs and production stuff and not broken a bit of it.
Aluminum and carbon frames and components i've killed loads
My ti Jones truss fork cracked after 12 years of regular use and long rides and races etc. Not a bad lifespan. I've had 2 other frame cracks in fairly new frames and one I sold on that cracked after a few years of tough use (I know the guy who bought it). 2 US made custom frames were fine for the 4-5 years I had them and I suspect would have kept on going.
Anecdata though, not much use. Fair to say mass-produced Ti sees more failures early in the frame's use perhaps due to contaminated welds. That seems rare in a custom frame though.
If you want a better chance of durability go for steel. It has lo-tech joining methods. imho the ride quality can be equally good (different somehow but equal), it's just a bit heavier.
Quote
3 Moots, 2 Indie Fabs, 2 Serottas, 10 Sevens, 3 Merlins.
All great bikes and never broke any of them.
I still own 3 of the above (the oldest is 12 years old, the youngest is 8). I know the whereabouts of 6 (the oldest of which is 23 years old) and they are still going strong.
Buy right, buy once.
Quote
Genuinely love how this is buy once
Quote
3 Moots, 2 Indie Fabs, 2 Serottas, 10 Sevens, 3 Merlins.
All great bikes and never broke any of them.
I still own 3 of the above (the oldest is 12 years old, the youngest is 8). I know the whereabouts of 6 (the oldest of which is 23 years old) and they are still going strong.
Buy right, buy once.
Quote
Genuinely love how this is buy once
Agree - that's had me chuckling all day. But surely the reason this thread exists is that Ti bikes have been sold as indestructible and bikes for life, which many are , and some aren't. I have no idea how they rack up for reliability against other materials and the only people with those stats would be manufacturers. Personally I'm not excited by them, but c'est la vie. (Under excited is perhaps an understatement of how I feel Ti gravel bikes look)
My Ragley Ti cracked at the downtube/headtube junction, fixed by Lynskey under warranty.
Setavento copy of a Marin Rocky Ridge frame, small crack at the top of the seat-tube, double bolt clamp puts area under compression, otherwise still fine.
Lynskey-made Planet X Ti Pro Road, bought in 2009, still fine and rides beautifully.
My Ragley Ti had a lot of hammer before it broke. Lynskey said basically it was because the downtube met the headtube too high up to clear fork crowns and left too much unbraced headtube below the junction, cue leverage, cue cracking. It's why they now use curved downtubes.
I really like the way ti frames ride and wear and it's repairable. That said I'm more likely to buy a steel frame these days, primarily because ti seems so expensive.
broken four steel hardtails and one aluminum in different ways. it's not about the material, but i'm not all that sure Ti is ideal for bicycle frame use.
1 x Enigma MTB and 1 x Enigma road. The former has been ridden and raced many times and is fine.
The only thing I find is they are fingerprint/mark/scratch magnets. Some people like a bit of patina but if your OCD er's on the side of perfectionist its a tough gig.
Me! However I've hardly ridden it.
J Guillem Atalaya. - had it 20 months but only done ~80 miles due to broken body and eye problems
@kryton57 Presumably you've tried the WD40 and/or Scotchbright rub down to sort the finish?
Me - three.
Cotic Soda - I got from Northwind. Previously repaired by Enigma and then ridden by myself and now my son.
Van Nicholas Euros,.
Stanton Switchback.
Loved them all.
See the end of this thread
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/tripster-atr-finally-built-up-lush/page/69/
At least 2 9 year old Tripsters still going
I've had 3, rode the Ragley Ti for absolutely years and raced enduros and generally rode it a load and quite hard, it was used when I got it and as far as I know it's still going with the new owner.
And a Soda, which I bought already cracked and got welded up, so you could say I unbroke it. Again last I heard it was still going. Though I didn't ride that all that much
And now got a Titus Loco Moto, which tbf doesn't massively inspire confidence, it's a massive, long travel, hard use but light bike with really not much structure to it, no gussets or much overlap/integration of tubes, which you'd think would give it less strength but maybe lets it flex and absorb stresses and avoids stress risers and suchlike, who knows? Don't even know who made it. But it's not broken yet and it's very good to ride.
@ton also worth bearing in mind the total rider/kit weight limit on frames, from memory salsa were about the 20st mark so a big lad with touring kit may be right at the upper end/tipping over of the frames design limits. Unless you go custom with a choice of thicker tube walls most production ti frames wont be aimed at the larger gentleman/small gorillas out there
I had a litespeed hardtail which was probably the nicest all-round frame to own and ride as it felt so solid and indestructible, didn't break it despite having an accident so hard it fully spanked the rider, frame just had a scratch- the one frame I've really regretted selling, and only because the wheels grew too small.
On the other hand I've cracked 3 carbon road frames around the BB from the now severely depleted wattage cottage and 1 carbon mtb chainstay just from the bike falling over on a wooden bridge....
Would have 'good' Ti again no hesitation, or steel.
I have a 2003 cove hummer that got thrashed several times a week for years and still ridden as more of a gravel bike. Seem to remember Jedi having the same bike that got ridden pretty hard. Not sure if he broke his
Presumably you’ve tried the WD40 and/or Scotchbright rub down to sort the finish?
No, please enlighten me re WD40? I don’t really want to try scotch brite as mine is a hand brushed Matt finish and I’m worried about creating a shiny patch on it.
I’ve owned one Ti bike, a Titus Fireline, the newer one. It’s my only bike and is still going strong. No idea who made it but it’s well finished and rides well.
Me. Its a 90s raleigh Ti MTB frame - but not one of the desirable ones. Ridden before me by a rider that is much tougher on bikes. Sadly redundant now
Had 3, didn't break any but the last one I had was just too bendy* (genesis 26" MTB) and for the weight gain concluded that decent steel is better for frame building for me (85kg bimbler).
* I could make the rear brake rub just by hauling on the handlebars
On One 456Ti, Lynskey Mk2, bought new in 2009 - just under 9,000 miles and over a million feet of climbing/descending.
Still fine, although not used since Covid as a couple of purchases superseded it.
It did however destroy a whole load of components - including 4 sets of forks and the best part of half a dozen rear wheels plus more mechs than I can remember.
I have though broken/worn out 2 carbon FS's, both were unusable as the carbon had 'worn' on bearing seats.