Custom Ti frames ?

I'll be having some money to throw at a custom frame and other bike bits after the winter, so I've been thinking about having a modern version of my Sbike 503 made, but using titanium instead of Cro-Moly.
I have a few questions though.

1 ) How does the rigidity of steel and Ti frames compare? My old 503's handling stands out due to the large amount of longitudinal flex (a result of the rectangular single main tube), and I would like to keep that.
My alu 728 has much less flex and as a result it feels sterile in comparison. If the Ti frame would have the stiffness of the alu one, I would rather have one made of steel instead.

2 ) Which framebuilder would you recommend for such a build with this material? There are none here in Belgium, so I'm looking at having it done in the UK. Perhaps the US even, but I'd prefer to avoid that due to the taxes and shipping costs etc.

3 ) What budget would I be looking at for just the frame, fork, stem, handlebar and seat tube? I was thinking of setting aside £2K-ish.
Of course a frame of this design could be a lot more expensive than a regular Ti frame due to the amount of work needed to manipulate the e-stay tubes.

Something like this?

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... e+titanium

My gut instinct is that with £2k you're well short of what you'd need for a special project like that.

@Suburbanreuben : Yeah, but more true to the original. Yo-Eddy's Grove was more of a modern version.
What I want is really just a replica of the old bike, like Hairstream's 2012 FTW FRO is of the old Yeti ones, but using a different material.
Unfortunately I don't have the original plans or access to the original welders, so that does complicate things.

As for budget, if it's way more than £2K to have the frame built, I'll just need to prin ... ermm ... set aside more.

If you want to stay in the EU (no customs), then have a look at edelbikes.

You could have a look round the MTBR 29er forum. Some Chinese and Russian Ti on display. The Russian stuff looks quite adventurous, could be they would take on the project.



http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/my-ch ... 88005.html

http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/trito ... 11461.html

http://forums.mtbr.com/bike-frame-discu ... 83688.html

You could easily visit this lot

http://vannicholas.com/

Thanks for the links, people.

I doubt Van Nicholas would do it, but the Russian might indeed.

They do custom builds, or do you mean ££££ wise?

http://vannicholas.com/37/2/tailormade/content.aspx

gtRTSdh":2w62qcr7 said:

They do custom builds, or do you mean ££££ wise?

http://vannicholas.com/37/2/tailormade/content.aspx

Click to expand...

I think he means in regard to creating an Sbike replica.