Titanium road bike

A few months ago I would have been very interested in Ti for a new road bike but am now having significant second thoughts over the suggested lack of environmental advantage over a good steel frame.

I'll be 60 this year and and am considering a new complete road bike for longer & faster rides; not races.  For my 50th, I bought a Genesis CdeF R725 frame, which currently runs flat bars and is on 32 spoke wheels, making it a good touring bike.  Hope X2 brakes, decent spread of 3x10 gearing and it's functional and reliable.  It's not light but I can ride it for 12 hours without too much discomfort.  I'm considering a 'Road' bike and the Fairlight Secan/Strael are firmly in my sights at present, perhaps with lighter wheels.  I worry that for example the Strael might feel overly short for my brain; I'd be a 56R most likely, so wheelbase is a scary looking 1000mm.  reviews suggest that it will ride really nicely, lighter and livelier than my Genesis.  Does anyone have experience of both Strael & Secan, for comparisons sake?

Priorities being reasonably light, reasonably quick, reasonably comfortable- a nice place to be on a long day ride..

I suspect I'd go with a mechanical 105/GRX 2x12 build and maybe those lightish wheels.

RE steel and Ti, I've had a couple of US-made Ti custom road bikes but I have a 953 frame which has a nicer ride feel overall. It has pretty much the same parts and geometry as the Ti bikes did but there's something I like about the ride Vs the Ti frames. But it's very subtle. Not saying one is better than the other, just that it gets very close either way.

If I was getting a custom frame now it'd be 853 main tubes, with 931 or 921 stainless stays for that classic 3/4 chromed rear sort of look. It'd be a tad heavier than the 953 frame but there's loads of choice of UK builders who could do a great job with those materials and add the details that make it a true custom bike.

Love my Secan, and the new ones (and the Straels) have modular dropouts so you can change hanger type which should future-proof them.

That said, if I was looking for something truly special, I passed this place in Gent recently and the bikes look absolutely phenomenal  https://www.jaegher.be/

Spa cycles in Harrogate will always do you a deal my mate has two titanium frames spec'd the way he wanted from them at decent money , his wife as well . She had a bike made by Ricky Feather but the wait almost killed her , it is absolutely gorgeous though to be fair, although not Ti.

Have a read of this before you decide: https://www.rodbikes.com/articles/steel-vs-titanium/steel-vs-titanium.html

I'd avoid a lot of the off the shelf titanium bikes as they're as heavy/heavier than their steel counterparts, and are far more costly. The Sonder mentioned previously as an example; the Fairlight is lighter, cheaper and probably "feels" a better ride.

Yes. Had a v1 steel Secan gravel bike and a titanium Sonder Camino gravel bike. Secan a much nicer ride all round. Well designed butted steel frame > Plain gauge Ti frame.

A lot of the Ti frames are made in same place in China so much of a muchness. Had a Ti Kinesis Tripster which was lovely, but many cracked so at 95kgs got rid.

Been building my Goldrush today.  The frame is pretty impressive.  Can't comment on the ride but I'm pleased by it's looks

Also I will probably get kicked for this, and I dont really care,  these days try not to buy anything from China due to their genocide to the uighurs and also their support for the genocide in Ukraine.

No need to get kicked out, up to you where you want to buy from and why, although the companies based in China are not necessarily part of that genocide but China are profiting overall from people buying stuff from them I suppose.

Going down that path you also need to check where the tubing is coming from and what you think of that country though, but again not a bad thing to do.

For fancy steel look at :

Fairlight Strael

I don't quite get why Fairlight frames are so expensive.

Anyway, still riding my 2010, Lynskey-made Planet X road bike, now with Enve forks and it still rides beautifully. In an ideal world it would maybe have more tyre clearance and disc brakes, but most of the time it just works really well. I think sometimes people get overly hung up on specifications and the latest industry standards instead of just appreciating something for what it is.

I don’t quite get why Fairlight frames are so expensive.

Anyway, still riding my 2010, Lynskey-made Planet X road bike

Because they're not banged out in their thousands using straight tubing maybe?

i have a planet x spitfire road bike that i love (rim brakes).

due to depression/laziness i haven't ridden anything  like as much as i would like to but i plan on changing that.

just bought a cadence  sensor for my garmin so very much wanting to get out and ride (and see how low my rpm is lol)

plan on going out after the tdf stage is finished for a short ride (no fitness due to lack of riding).

Don’t want to derail the thread.

just wondered what’s so special about a titanium road bike frame ?

Obviously it’s titanium, so super sexy frame material and super cool - which I get, but what’s the big attraction over a carbon, or steel frame ?

If well designed and built, it's lighter than steel and not as harsh as carbon.

It also makes wonderful noises when gravel pings off it unlike both steel and carbon.

but am now having significant second thoughts over the suggested lack of environmental advantage over a good steel frame.

This is just noise.  Even with the assumptions (all titanium is from virgin material - wrong) and missing elements (the impact of paint 2.7kgCO2e/l) then the difference is 36kg of Co2e which is ~ 290miles in an average car or 26l of fuel/heating oil.

I'd crank through that in 2 weeks of commuting by bike.

but what’s the big attraction over a carbon, or steel frame ?

Rides like steel, weight of aluminium. And Shiny. You have to like the ride of a steel bike over a stiffer, larger tubed carbon bike. Have all there materials. I race carbon, but prefer titanium.

Geometry = handling

Material = weight

Tube diameter = stiffness

You can make a (relatively) skinny tubed ultralight carbon bike - Specialized Aethos for example. You can make a stiff oversized steel bike. With titanium you tend to sit in the middle of the range. For the same geometry and tube diameter, there will be no difference between steel and titanium. Except you can brush off the marks with a 3M purple pad on a titanium frame and save about one water bottle in weight.

Don’t want to derail the thread.

just wondered what’s so special about a titanium road bike frame ?

Obviously it’s titanium, so super sexy frame material and super cool – which I get, but what’s the big attraction over a carbon, or steel frame ?

TBH I think you sort of answered your own question; it's expensive, niche and people who 'know' will 'know' when they see your bike's sort of shiny grey brushed finish, while uninitiated muggles will be clueless.

All the claimed engineering benefits cross over with the various other materials on offer, and are just a helpful way to justify a "heart over head" choice.

Younger me would have been so impressed with a Ti bike frame, older me will just shrug, it's your money mate...

And I forgot to say, that titanium became popular as an adjunct to more traditional steels like 531 and 735 for the weight benefits. The advent of carbon and alloy for weight and stiffness in oversized tubing opened up possibilities that were unavailable to titanium (because the tubing isn't really bike specific). Then along came the super steels such as 953, and the weight benefits and indeed the all important shiny faded too. Still like mine, but stainless steel might be my first choice now.

Because they’re not banged out in their thousands using straight tubing maybe?

I'm not sure why I should pay twice as much for a Fairlight Secan as I would for an On One Rujo, both made in Taiwan from butted steel. It feels a bit like Fairlight are selling at a bit of a premium. Don't get me wrong, I understand that they're using Reynolds tubing, presumably exported from the UK to Taiwan, then re-imported in frame form and you're getting more frame size choices and some s****y marketing/paint-jobs and I'm sure they do ride really nicely, but they just seem really expensive.

I'm not criticising Fairlight in any way btw. Good luck to them, I hope they do really well, I'm just curious. And I'm really not sure how 'special' they are, certainly compared to a custom steel frame from a UK builder. Then again if people 'feel' that they're 'special', I guess effectively they are.

On the ti front for me, it's just how the frame rides rather than any image thing or 'bike for life' mythology. It doesn't matter to me that my ti frame, two of them in fact, were made by Lynskey in the States, but branded Planet X and Ragley respectively. They both just ride really well.

Fairlight is probably 50% the cost of an equivalent UK custome built frame. (Looking at feather, lord etc)

And the R plus T geometry options can see the added cost of all those extra sku's ....

Worth having a look at the Fairlight look books and design info on their website to see the level of thought and detail that goes into each one e.g. Bentley Components metalwork at the dropouts and brake mounts. Two different geometry configuration per size, quality of finishing and paint etc. I'd spin it the other way - they're super cheap compared to a custom frame.

It's great marketing that clearly appeals to a certain psyche. I can't say I'd be concerned that my cables guides are made from a 3D printed UV resistant polymer, though.