Full titanium brompton clone, 5.78kg

[Raxel]

I (and my wife) haven't had any time for riding for years, but we managed to settle down recently.
I noticed that full titanium brompton (clone) frames and brompton-specific WW parts are fairly easy to acquire nowadays, so I decided to build one for my wife.

Titanium main frame, rear frame, fork and handlepost are now being made by multiple builders in Taiwan and China. They are not cheap, but still cheaper than genuine frame and handlepost made by UK Brompton (while weighing a lot less)

16 inch prebuilt wheelset. They are unbelievably cheap for the weight (whole wheelset costs less than $200)
Kinlin NB-R 349 rim, 14/21 spokes (rolf pattern front, g3 pattern rear), DT champion spokes, 74mm/112mm wide hubs (american classic? )

[Raxel]

Chinese WW parts galore.

Again, unbelievably cheap (and light) square taper crankset+BB combo. They may be super flexy, but should be fine for my wife.

Carbon flat handlebar cut to 530mm length.

31.8mm carbon seatpost cut to 550mm length.

Unbelievably cheap copy of san marco superleggera saddle.

I have successfully used inline brake lever for many of my builds, and I chose another pair as the main brake lever here.

DT swiss remote lock lever is used as an ultralight shifter.

Small wheels are used to support the bike when folded. I custom designed and 3D printed mine.

And I decided to design custom tensioner too

And finally the pusher assembly (which moves the guide pulley around, in short a crude derailleur)

[Raxel]

Here's the assembled bike:

Final weight is 5780gr.
Not a bad weight for budget build.

[Klaster_1]

This is seriously awesome

[kgt]

Very nice!

[martinkartin]

Where were you able to order the ti parts? I’ve heard that eBay sellers take weeks up to months before they can properly deliver the parts.

[Marin]

Very nice, makes me want to own one...

[themidge]

Epic. What BB is that?

[jbaillie]

What a cool project! And WW appropriate.

[Rich_W]

That is ridiculously cool. I’m convulsing in jelly...

[Raxel]

Where were you able to order the ti parts? I’ve heard that eBay sellers take weeks up to months before they can properly deliver the parts.

Ebay, from multiple sellers. Some have them in stock, some build to order. For my case it didn't take more than 2 weeks to get them.

Epic. What BB is that?

It's "ace" brand. Just search "titanium bottom bracket square taper" at the ebay and you will see a bunch of them.

[markdjr]

Looks awesome! Any thing you feel it's lacking when compared to a Brompton? What was cost of the build?

[kavlares]

what a badass bike!
you should post your sources for the frame parts!

[basilic]

This is spectacular, bravo.
I've always rejected the idea of a brompton due to weight...

[Geoff]

Ok, that's nice. I would never have imagined that you could get a folder so light so quickly. Great work.