Cycling UK Forum

TheBomber wrote: ↑29 Jun 2022, 5:42pm

De Sisti wrote: ↑29 Jun 2022, 1:07pm I have a steel, titanium and carbon fibre bikes. They all have identical groupsets,
wheels/hubs/cassette ratios, saddles, handlebars.

I’m intrigued. Are you a bicycle reviewer?

No I'm not. Why would you even think that, as I've not reviewed anything?

Have you seen the Spa audax mono?

https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m11b0s143p4 ... o-Frameset

I would love a stainless steel or fancy steel (531, 631, 853 etc) singlespeed bike but my old plain gauge fixed commuter fits me well and it's only marginally more pleasant to ride my mercian 531C fixed gear and it does not fit so well. I cannot bring myself to spend the £1200 quid that I would expect a custom frame to cost.

what's the issue with making a front fork out of titanium? rarely, if ever seems to occur.

mig wrote: ↑30 Jun 2022, 11:23am what's the issue with making a front fork out of titanium? rarely, if ever seems to occur.

certainly no expert but was once told Ti is too flexible for forks. There is a few. but to get the stiffness you need big tubes.

Love those Aphelion bikes never come across those before..

I'd go for steel, but painted and left as a flat grey primer, perhaps with some black, red and while pin striping on the main triangle and a tiny bit at the top of the forks and seat stays....

A local guy has a stainless steel bike built by Chris Marshall. It’s a lovely bike.
I voted Titanium because I love the ride my Yukon gives me but I’d certainly consider others if I was looking.

Jupestar wrote: ↑30 Jun 2022, 12:29pm

mig wrote: ↑30 Jun 2022, 11:23am what's the issue with making a front fork out of titanium? rarely, if ever seems to occur.

certainly no expert but was once told Ti is too flexible for forks. There is a few. but to get the stiffness you need big tubes.

Yes, the Young's Modulus / Modulus of Elasticity of the common Ti alloys (Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-3Al-2.5V) is around 107 - 114GPa compared to around 190 - 200GPa for steel. You'd need much bigger diameter fork legs and/or thicker walls to equal the stiffness of a steel fork.

My guess is it would look to clunky and might put off buyers, while not saving any significant weight vs a steel fork and being way heavier than a C fork.

Plus, C forks are cheaply available off the peg so a framebuilder can design their frame geometry to suit, and save a chunk of money on the bike/frameset.

mig wrote: ↑30 Jun 2022, 11:23am what's the issue with making a front fork out of titanium? rarely, if ever seems to occur.

I think it's mostly a matter of cost/benefit, real or maybe perceived, as in adding a lot to the first without much to the second.
I think they're technically hard to get right, though not impossible, there's several options available, both OTP and custom. I had some from Enigma, though these were recalled and eventually they decided to refund rather than replace. So that bike had, ti, steel and carbon forks without anything else changing, I couldn't tell the difference.
EDIT - Burls used to offer ti forks, I don't know if they still do, I can't find them listed on their website. When I enquired abut a frameset some years ago, ti forks were three times the price of the steel equivalent.

Forks have a very different job to frames: they aren't based around a triangle!
So I can believe they need to be made from stiffer material.

My Dynatech Ti frame - made before CF was affordable - used steel forks, quite nice skinny things.
My Airborne - like the Van Nichs, Enigmas etc - uses a CF fork.

I think it's significant that Ti never got a look in, across various eras and makers.

Interesting reading, thanks all. I've explored lots of options at this point, including the Aphelion, which put me off by only having a 1 year warranty. I did kind of like the look of what I think of as their plumber's mate (not sure how much copper plumbers use anymore though).

mig wrote: ↑30 Jun 2022, 11:23am what's the issue with making a front fork out of titanium? rarely, if ever seems to occur.

You could get some Ti forks for MTB. I had a titanium Saracen that had Ti straight blade rigid forks which were insanely light. Kona made their Project 2 straight blade fork in Ti for a couple of years as well - if you can find any on ebay now they go for ridiculous sums of money.

In fact someone once offered me £400 for the forks there and then at a 24hr race. Saw my bike and offered me cash, payable straight after I'd finished racing. I declined...

However, carbon fibre is a lot easier to work with and has more of the desired properties of stiffness, vibration damping and low weight.

always seems to me that the claims made for the qualities of titanium outweigh the way it actually delivers over time. mostly, it seems, because it's so difficult to join perfectly.

I have ti forks on my ti bike (made by xacd). They're ok.

Head won over heart today after quite a battle. I am at peace. Thanks again for the contributions to this thread.

sussex cyclist wrote: ↑23 Jul 2022, 4:53pm Head won over heart today after quite a battle. I am at peace. Thanks again for the contributions to this thread.

Do let us know what you bought.