Show us your Titanium....

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
Here's my new Burls finally built up, well nearly still needs FD, but not done more than round the block yet:-


med_gallery_4072_201_1036596.jpg

Very nice Mac, really..... now all you have to do is get yer arse out on a ride with us...
 

MacB

Lover of things that come in 3's
I've done it to a lesser extent, bought a Van Nic Yukon chose my own groupset, stem, bars already had my own wheels, picked a nice honey coloured Brooks, all in all took about 2 days :biggrin: i'm now just tweaking things to suit with the stem being first to get changed to a shorter one.

An excellent choice, Van Nich were up there on my short list with a lean towards the Amazon over the Yukon(though the Yukon is prettier), I also looked closely at the Sabbath offerings, in particular the Silk Route. But none of them quite had what I wanted and the prices were comparable at £1k for the Burls frame. The actual differences aren't huge but they were insurmountable without customisation:-

I have clearances for up to 700x42 tyres
disc brake mounts without canti ones as well
a 200mm headtube

I've only got 700x28 tyres on there as I got a really good deal on them, I plan to go with 700x32, or bigger, when they wear out. I may even reserve the 28's for when I need to keep pace with others and use bigger tyres for solo rides. One of the beauties of disc brakes is I can swap the tyres easily and not worry about clearances.

I did break one cardinal rule by going with the Hope hubs, I now have a noisy freewheel :blush: , i just wanted the Hopes, still it should keep me turning the pedals!
 

MacB

Lover of things that come in 3's
Very nice Mac, really..... now all you have to do is get yer arse out on a ride with us...

I'm working on it buddy, health and weight haven't been so good(read that as shocking), I literally couldn't complete a full ride at the moment...baby steps...hopefully this will spur me on, or is it time for another project :whistle:
 

Jezston

Über Member
Location
London
Here's my new Burls finally built up, well nearly still needs FD, but not done more than round the block yet:-


med_gallery_4072_201_1036596.jpg


Wait ... hangon ... with all your talk of hub gears - alfines, rohloffs and so on over the last year or so ... you've gone for a bike with a derrailleur?
 

MacB

Lover of things that come in 3's
Wait ... hangon ... with all your talk of hub gears - alfines, rohloffs and so on over the last year or so ... you've gone for a bike with a derrailleur?

calm down, the other two bikes are hub gears, built to serve a utalitarian purpose, this one is indulgence so I'm not concerned about parts longevity in the same way.

On the other hand you're right and, at heart, I'm just an ageing tart trying to buy a little zip in his life :biggrin:

I'm still sticking to my idea of 3/4 bikes being the right number:-

1. Dawes - pub bike - all purpose, leave outside shops, bike, as few gears as possible, hub gears(3 in this case), rack and guards for utility, big enough tyres to do light trails etc.
2. Salsa Vaya - commuter/allrounder - reliable and low maintenance, so disc brakes, enough gears to be able to do long hilly rides if needed, hub gears(currently I-9 but plans for future Alfine 11), rack and guards for utility, puncture proof tyres again big enough to do light trails, dynamo lighting and wheel, ability to take deraillers if needed and comfort prioritised over speed.
3. Burls - weekend bike - for fun only and can be whatever you like - this was what I liked though I accept that I've still leant towards utalitarian potential with rack mounts, big tyre clearances and disc brakes.
4. MTB - not currently required as I don't do proper off road and both the Dawes and Vaya would be capable of cyclocross style riding - but I don't rule it out as a possible in the future.

Piccies of all three bikes are in my album:-

http://www.cyclechat.net/gallery/album/4072/201-macb-bikes/

I had considered that bike No 2 needed to be titanium as well, anti rust etc, but then figured in my current age, life expectancy and needs and decided that it would be overkill :whistle:
 

MacB

Lover of things that come in 3's
How silly of me to think you might only want ONE bike ;)

Hmmm, need and want, I'd fulfilled needs and this was a want...but don't castigate yourself for being silly, I've procrastinated and debated for so long it wouldn't have been easy for anyone to follow my thought processes!

By the way, if it had to be one bike only then it would be Ti with hub gear and maybe a spare hub gear wheel at home in case of mechanicals.
 

P.H

Über Member
Looking good MacB. Have you got the geometry of the Burls? Looks very steep at the front, though it could be the angle of the photo. Do you have any toe overlap?

And what's the verdict on the EBB on the other bike?
 

MacB

Lover of things that come in 3's
I haven't tested for toe overlap, in fact I've never tested for it on any of my bikes and I've never caught a toe on the front wheel apart from when dicking about. I'll probably test for it now and then it'll prey on my mind if it exists :ohmy: but don't feel bad!!!

Geometry, should be somewhere between the Dawes traditional horizontal and the Vaya pretty slopey, the actual numbers are:-

Head Tube - Angle 72.5, length 200mm and standard external headset as well, there's 8mm from top of HT to top of TT and 10mm from bottom of HT to bottom of DT
Top Tube - 547.5mm actual and 570mm virtual with a 10.6 degree slope
Seat Tube - Angle 72.5, length 566mm CtoT and 530mm CtoC, this gives me about 160mm of seatpost to saddle rails, but still dialling in position, am working on my fitness so doing the miles on the Vaya at present. Centre of BB to top of saddle along the line of the ST is about 795mm.
Chainstay - 435mm and clearance for tyres up to 700x44
Forks - trail is about 61 degrees, aim was for somewhere between road and touring for steering responsiveness

I think the length of the head tube makes the front look steeper, the HT and ST angles are definitely the same. As I say it's not done a mile yet so there'll be a bit of tweaking to do yet.

The EBB on the Vaya is great so far, my mileage has been building slowly and it's done about 200 miles now. I've undone it all and redone it just to check that there wasn't any unusual wear on the bearings or anything. All looked fine to me and setting the tension and aligning the EBB inserts is dead simple. Assuming I stay with the same ring to cog ratio when I run out of adjustment, or the chain starts to skip, then it's just new chain and back to the original adjustment point. But I'm not really going to know until I've got a few thousand miles on it. It was over 2k miles before I needed to move the wheel back in the Surly frame to adjust for chain tension.
 

zigzag

Veteran
nice bikes, but why titanium bikes all look the same - same colour frame and black bits around it? can titanium be powdercoated?
 
Top Bottom