Some thing about the titanium frames
- Thread starter madjh
- Start date
Rody, I did just want to say that in labelling $3,000 for a bike frame ‘a sick joke’, I was in no way meaning to impugn you or any other builder. You can rest assured that inpugning you is one thing I shall never do. But I do think that spending that much is a big problem for all but the very wealthiest people. Especially in a world in which wives carefully train their children to go and ask their fathers searching questions about budgetary priorities, culminating in the coup de grace ‘you don’t love me, do you daddy?’rody":bmqa9zoy said:Quite a few good comments...
PurpleWicked was right...Ti is not a magic word.
Anthony, Ti Sports make some beautifully well crafted frames, certainly some of the cleanest and best builds out there...should get more credit than they do. Just because it is a house brand and not labeled otherwise should not detract from it's quality, but that is consumerism.
Additionally, they can sell their frames so much cheaper than I as they are a producer of Ti tubing, so their costs are MUCH cheaper. They sell to builders as well, with sufficient mark up
cheers,
rody
It may be that titanium is just too expensive and that a well-designed steel frame is the best way for a hand builder to find a ready market. Especially as it offers much better opportunities to use paint as a key selling point as well as the customised ride.
The ironic thing is that the US, being the wealthiest country on earth, has the biggest number of people who can afford a ti frame, but also now has labour costs so high as to begin to preclude series production of ti frames in the US. But as the hand-build relationship often tends to be a face-to-face, shake-hands type of thing, hand-builders need to be where the market is and will still thrive. I hope so anyway Rody.
