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Tonight I was at work building a road bike.

Speficially a Litespeed Teramo. For those not in-the-know, Litespeed is a company that makes some WICKED bikes. They use Titanium for most of their bikes, and that's the basis for this post.

I was lucky enough to get to watch a tube of 6/4 get the shit bashed out of it the other day, and was amazed at it's strength. 15 seconds of bashing with a dead blow hammer, and it was barely dented and the ends of the tube were still true. If it happened to a bike, you could have easily ridden the bike forever with little concern of breakage. Pretty fucking killer stuff.

So that started my fascination with Ti.

Litespeeds come completely unassembled (as they should), so they come bare frame, and you build everything up from there.

The frame of that bike weighed only 3.11 pounds. For a bike that will last you forever, never corrode, last through an accident and be able to be fixed time and time again. As well as being built by a company who pioneered Titanium bicycles.

The whole thing is an impressive peice of minimalistic, utilitarian, and technologically amazing machinery. Simple, durable, lightweight, comfortable, and sickeningly cool. To bad the stuff is wicked expensive for a custom frame. I was quoted around 3,000 for a custom, never before seen, frame.

That's all really.

Doesn't Oakley have some shades made with Ti?

They make some with Magnesium.

I've got them. The Mag Switches.

Mmmmmm. . . super-strong, super-lightweight alloys. . . . .


*droooool*

Litespeeds are sweet. Welding that stuff takes some serious talent. I don't know if they are hand made, though. Magnesium is cool, too - those Hella 90mms have magnesium housings and they are LIGHT.

Steve

Litespeeds are hand made

The welds are super clean

Mmmmm. My favorite use of Ti is motercycle exhausts. It's visible and you can see all the different colors it turns because of the heat.

magnesium is expensive because it tends to catch fire when its machined. Hard drive head are made of it, as are some vw rims. Now if thats not a stupid idea, then explain to me why its on a vw. I know of at least 2 scorpios that burnt to the ground becuase the tire popped and the mag rims caught fire.

mag burns bright and fast. i always wondered why people used mag for wheels.

ti is freakin sweet stuff.. suposedly it needs to be welded in an argon bath or something like that to prevent it from turning into titanium oxide .

Don't dump water on burning magnesium.

people use magnesium for rims because it is as strong as aluminum but 40% lighter, and it doesn't flat spot as easily over potholes.

You'd have to be a serious ass to ignite a magnesium wheel on the road. I don't think a simple blowout would do it. My BMW 3.0cs had magnesium wheels and they were freaky light. A lot of cars had them, VW, porsche, Peugeot to name a few. And guess what those big dollar racing wheels are ? Until carbon fiber came along magnesium dominated racing wheels entirely, and still does really except at F1 levels.

Its not as hard to machine as most people think, the problems occur if you have big piles of shavings sitting there and somehow ignite them.

The real deal is thixotropic molding of magnesium, similar to plastic molding but you inject a molten magnesium slurry. Not much danger of ignition. That's how some of the slick new phone housings and computer cases are being made, and increasingly, parts for cars as they make the technology for larger parts.

Titanium is interesting but in my opinion, over-used as an industry buzzword, and used where it is not really needed. It is very tough which is the most useful property. I can see for a bike that is going to take a beating, the tubes can be thicker than steel so much harder to dent. I think the average racer or weekend bike aficianado changing bolts to titanium, spending a few hundred dollars, to save a few grams really makes me laugh.

I've seen some bad quality in titanium, ask some of my friends who fitted titanium parts to their high-dollar racing skateboards, only to kiss the ground hard when the kingpin bolts snapped. Titanium really has to be masterfully machined to get all the benefits.

PICS PLEASE!

BTW, old air cooled VW blocks are magnesium.

Werd.
My watch is made from Ti, and its light-weightedness is why I bought it in the first place.. I wanted that blingy-lookin' watch, but without all the bulk that comes with them. It was pretty subtle, then, too, back in ...~2001?
Heck, that was even before they were touting "Ti" Credit Cards!

Professor - Grams add up, and it's easy to shave a pound off of a bike. But spending a few hundred for a few grams? Well, it's akin to spending a few thousand for a few hp.

As for pics...

Here is Litespeed's Top of the line Road bike. The frame weighs 1.96 pounds. Cost is just over 7 grand, I believe.

*spurt* *gasp* ohhh.... I want it's children.
That's a beautiful ride..
Hehe, Phil, stay alive, meng. I want to buy a bike that YOU built.
It'd be special.
The guy that built my current one, in his small local bike shop, just died a few weeks ago from a 5 month battle with a brain tumor.
Sorry, the bike made me think of that..
[/hijack]

I've been similarly fascinated with carbon fiber. Here's a little something I built a few years back...and yes, there is a driver in there (head first). The whole thing weighs about 19 pounds including air brakes, rack & pinion steering, three 200mm wheels, safety harness, and crash bars

moderator: I reduced that to 20k but for some reason it showed up here original size, my apologies

Red x, prof. Whaddya gonna do now?

Fixed...I broke the link so as not to screw everyone with 56k, then fixed it

wtf? Yo Prof, Please explain that thingamajig.

think high-tech soap box derby, except you have to push it uphill first, then it goes downhill rather quickly

a competition at Carnegie Mellon that has been held since 1920 on the same track

because of the uphill bit you try to stay light and get the smallest driver you can, but it has to be a student, so women almost invariably drive them. they also wreck them sometimes, hard

I've got some .mov clips somewhere

Reminds me of the slick-ass gravity racers at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Steve

do you have some .mov's of the crashes? And the hot chicks climbing into the contraption? Gotta use hot chicks, they're faster!

My dream bike is an Independent Fabrications Ti Deluxe. IF frames simply works of art, a definite step above even Lightspeed’s. 2820.00 gets you a laser cut sterling silver head badge and custom butted and drawn 3.2 tubes and 6.4 drops. I had a neighbor in Ft. Collins with a Seven Ti road bike, it also was gorgeous and 3K+…frame only. To the non bike dork the pic looks like any other frame, but it’s in the details. Within the next year or so I’m going to try and acquire one of those, and barring catastrophy never have to buy another hardtail MTB frame.
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I really like IF, but I can't help but be a sucker for Litespeed when it comes to Ti. Their builds are so beautiful.

My dream bike would be a custom, burly Ti hardtail similar to the Banshee Morphine in design and style. Able to clear a 2.7" tire, run a 9 speed with a 12mm thru axle, and be safe to run a 7" DC fork. Goodness, that would be hot.

Professor - Did you use a midget? I would have used a midget.