Titanium, can it be improved?

[RussellS]

I have many more ideas for improvements for a titanium frame but it'll have to wait until the investment capital is at my disposal. My personal predictions for a stiff, compliant and aerodynamically optimized titanium frame are that this is possible at a weight of around 900g for 56cm frame.

And how do you think you can accomplish this? The Litespeed Ghisallo from the early 2000s was around 900 grams for the smaller frame sizes. See the Listings on this forum. It was made from very thin and light 6/4 titanium tubing. Are you planning on inventing some new titanium alloy? And if so, why would you waste it on cheap bicycle frames instead of selling it for billions of dollars to the aerospace and military industries.

[mythical]

Plenty of Litespeed Ghisallo owners recorded even lighter weights in the low 800 grams. Frame stiffness often knows 2 determinants: HT stiffness in N/deg and BB stiffness in N/mm. The way to address these is in the shaping/geometry and construction of the frame. The problem is saving weight by thinking in a traditional sense, which often means chipping away material but not addressing flex and stress points.

Based on design and manufacturing methods commonly known and applied in aerospace, I estimate that building a titanium frame with next level performance as light as 900 grams should be possible. It would look more like modern carbon frames than a traditional welded frame.

[reippuert]

@ reippuert. I'm building a Titanium Firefly and going the gravel bike route with 32 mm tires , disc brakes and thru-axle. In talking with the bike shop who is helping with the build it seems a number of people are ditching the n+1 rule and using this type of bike as their do-it all bike. Something like this could be outfitted with enve 3.4 disc wheels.

I've looked into the pure gravel geometries: a tad too long chainstays, angles too slack, BB drop and stalk is right though
I've also looked into pure cross geometries: a tad too long chainstays, BB drop way too high up and stalk way to short. Angels are right though.

I still looking for a desired stock geometry and the right featureset.

current interesting stock geometries are: Kona Roadhouse, Genesis Equilibrium and Salsa Colossal - they just miss a beat here an there. The Litespeed T5 might quilify as well. Unfortunately the Soma Tripple Cross was only made in limeted number - the geometry and material in KVA stainless looked really nice.

Among Cross/Gravel bikes i found two very interesting frameset that seem to get rave reviews i Germany -

Punch Solon http://www.punchcycles.com/CROSS_GRAVEL.html - a ti bike designed by Mario Sillack with short chainstays and they claim to keep they BB as low as on their road frame (can't find exact geometry chart though. Their road disc frame PALOOKA are getting excelent reviews and is beeing rated high for its low weight, high level of comfort AND very high stiffness values in front end for a metal frame. They are even using hydro formed ti for the chainstays.

Rennstahl Gravel/Cross 931 http://rennstahl-bikes.de/rennsport.html. a R931 frameset from rennstahl/falkenjagdt - it looks really nice, they are aloso keeeping the BB low and the chainstays relatively short.

Both are arround 2000€, allound 40% moremore than a Kona Roadhouse in R853 - but with extra room for wide tires and and no risk of damaing the paint job or rust.