17lbs Lynskey Titanium Hardtail... finished

That is a beautiful and seriously light bike. Must have cost a packet too. Nice to see the obligatory 'Wiggle' box on the floor. :D

Congrat's. :cool:
 
neilll,

Full of Blimps, fighter aircraft and bombers. well there was a war on you know!!

Al. older than he looks,cornwall. ;)
 
:shock: :shock: :shock:

When I read the thread title I assumed it was gonna be fully rigid with Vs! :shock: :shock: :shock:
 
Amazing build

TBH though I'd be scared to use a bike like that after spending so much time and money on it!
 
If nothing else you deserve credit for the amount of time it must have taken to compile this thread alone! I think MW was the reigning champ ;)

1 question, full custom frame, yet you've ended up with like 2inches of aheadset spacers under the stem. how come you didnt go for a longer headtube?
 
Wow, really amazing, a labour of love, so light its unreal, but is real! and parked up on the forum next to my heavy lump that weighs nearly twice that.

Amazing work chap.
 
Cheers for all the compliments.

The bike total cost is about 5500 USD. All the XTR parts I got off of Hong Kong ebay. The frame from Lynskey was 1900 USD. The fork is a 2008 and thus was on closeout sale at JensonUSA for 299 USD. The Hope and Middleburn came from Wiggle and Chainreaction Cylces resepectively.

Fortunately for us over the pond here in Canada, the Canadian dollar is at an all time high against the British Pound. So the Brakes and Crankset were actually quite cheap. With the currency conversion Wiggle and Chain Reaction Cycles was actually competitive with Hong Kong ebay as well, but they didn't have everything I wanted in stock.

The only thing I felt I went over board on was the wheels.

They weigh in at 1185g. Jeremy and Sarah of Alchmey Bicycle works www.alchemybicycleworks.com/ built the wheels for me. They used to be the Tune USA distributor and have since dropped them due to constant lack of supply and outrageously long wait times for product. Plus Jeremy just designed his own road bike hubset.

The wheel build is:
Tune King 28h Front hub
Tune Kong 32h Rear hub w/ Titanium freehub body
both hubs were reworked by Jeremy pro-bono because he was intriuged to see if he could build me a sub 1200g wheelset. The original quoted weight was 1224g. What he did was he internally butted the rear axle, replaced the non drive side rear hub bearing with hybrid ceramics. Replaced the 6902 bearing on teh driveside to a 6802 bearing. Then he swapped the bearings in the front hub with hyrbid ceramics.

The spokes are Pillar 1422 bladed aero tripple butted titanium spokes with alloy nipples

The rims are Alex XCR disc rims, by removing all the stickers 6 grams was saved.

Thankfully the Tune hubs were on closeout sale as Jeremy and Sarah were trying to punt off the rest of their Tune inventory. The rims were not that expensive (about 80 USD per rim). The spokes were a bit expensive, but not outrageous because I was budgeting for Sapim CX-Ray spokes. CX-rays were about 2.70 a spoke, and the Ti spokes were about 3.60 USD.

The total cost of the wheels came in at 1150 USD. Not cheap, but still within the price range of top of the line Mavics or Top of the line Shimanos and still cheaper than Industry9s.

As for the large number of spacers under the stem is two fold. One is because I haven't had the chance to dial in the fit of the bike on dirt. The trails are all closed right now due to spring run off from the snow melting and heavy rains. Secondly I'm not sure if I will keep the fork. A couple of friends had this fork and all sold it once they got their warranty replacement. Mantiou moved production from USA to Taiwan mid product line in 2008 and all the ones from Taiwan came in overweight and had valve failures. My is made in Taiwan (not that I have anything wrong with the Chinese as I'm of Chinese decent but born in Canada). If the fork is not what I expect it to be it is much easier to sell it with a long steerer tube than with a short one.

I'll post some pics when I get the bike dirty. It is my 2009 XC race bike.

I would hardly say my bike is uber expensive and took lots of time to build. I see many restorations where paint is stripped, the frame dipped and repainted. NOS parts hunted like rare coins. Many of you guys who have posted have equally or nicer bikes in my opinion. I surf this forum because I enjoy seeing all these cool parts from when I was very little. I wish 3DV was still mainstream. If Chris King ever offered his Hubs in Violet along with his bottom bracket and headset I'd be the first in line to buy them.
 
:shock: :shock: :shock:

That bike is pure porn! I've just furtilized my desk :!:

Cheers!":1b1k1may said:
The spokes are Pillar 1422 bladed aero tripple butted titanium spokes with alloy nipples

What's your experience with titanium spokes. I'm building a custom wheelset as well and am thinking about using Ti spokes as well. So far, I've come to this list:

+ Looks (Ti dye)

- Less stiff
- Used to break quicker than normal spokes
- Weight is approx the same as normal spokes

I want to have this pattern but don't know if it is possible with Ti spokes.

I wonder what your experience is and if you can add + or - to my list.

Casper
 
Unfortunately I don't have much experience with Titanium spokes. This is my first set of wheels with Ti spokes.

THe wheel builder / distributor of Pillar spokes in USA (Jeremy of Alchemy Bicycle Works) told me that the Pillar Ti spokes is roughly 25% less stiff than the same wheel built with Sapim CX-Ray (which is probably the strongest steel spoke out there). So if you count that it is 25% less than CX-Ray you might be able to justify it as saying they are the same stiffness as the DTswiss Revolution spokes. He also mentioned you need a lot of spoke tension in the Ti spokes to have them reliable, and that the Rim needs to support high tensions.

Hope that helps.
 
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