Anyone gone down the titanium route for there gravel bike. I am really interested in the Reilly Reflex offering, and wondered if anyone had one or has any exerience of Ti vs carbon for gravel.
https://www.reillycycleworks.com/produc ... -race-disc
Also, how do you insert pictures, seems the most simple way (snipping tool) is not an option!
Reilly Reflex - Titanium Gravel Race Bike
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UltraMaraFun
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Steve Curtis
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Probably of little help but I've been on a Reilly Spectre as my allroad/ winter bike for the past year.
I really enjoy it and the frame is well made but the tyres,wheels, seatpost and saddle make more difference to the ride feel that the frame material.
This Is my 14th TI frame and I have other allroad/ carbon frames which I'm comparing it to.
Buy it for the TI look but don't expect it to ride any differently to alloy, carbon or steel.
I really enjoy it and the frame is well made but the tyres,wheels, seatpost and saddle make more difference to the ride feel that the frame material.
This Is my 14th TI frame and I have other allroad/ carbon frames which I'm comparing it to.
Buy it for the TI look but don't expect it to ride any differently to alloy, carbon or steel.
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CustomMetal
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I have Ti for my gravel bike. I have a stainless all road too and have ridden carbon gravel bikes. My biggest thing is I don't have to worry about scratching/chipping paint or carbon. Very good material for the use case.
Allegra- Steel Lugs TBC
Aurelia- Stainless All Road 8.5kg
Bertha- TT 9.8kg
Perdita- Ti Turbo bike 8kg
Serenity- Ti Gravel 9.5kg/8.9kg
Verity- Ti Aero 8.2kg
Alya- Ti Climbing TBC
All weights with pedals,cages & garmin mount
Aurelia- Stainless All Road 8.5kg
Bertha- TT 9.8kg
Perdita- Ti Turbo bike 8kg
Serenity- Ti Gravel 9.5kg/8.9kg
Verity- Ti Aero 8.2kg
Alya- Ti Climbing TBC
All weights with pedals,cages & garmin mount
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Steve Curtis
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- Location: Hampshire UK, Dublin Ireland and Geneva Switzerland.
True. Another reason I chose it for a winter / shitty back road bike.
One more voice in the "Ti for taking abuse" crowd, but I think it's important to note that it's a very different kind of thinking than the traditional 'winter bike' logic which is all about having something cheap and expendable that you treat as a sacrificial bike. Maybe do that with wheels/tires/drivetrain, but the great thing about the Ti frame is it's a winter bike that's worthy of as much pride and care as a summer bike when you want it to be.
My first gravel bike was carbon and I still prefer to ride and race it for pretty much any duration up to 36 hours, but once I did my first bikepacking trip on it I knew immediately that I needed to have a Titanium one as well. Gravel dust plus bikepacking bags behaves almost identically to a carbon cutting hacksaw blade, so even though I spent hours applying protective frame tape I just never felt any peace of mind about taking the carbon bike on multi-day trips. (Thankfully Tailfin and the like are addressing that pretty well now but that's beside the point here.)
My Ti frame isn't as nice as the Reilly but neither is my carbon one, so I'd say they're equivalent tiers. I'll echo what Steve says - how you build it up makes more difference to how it rides than anything else. If I put the wheels from my Tarmac SL7 on it I can feel the extra compliance, but honestly that probably says more about the Tarmac than the Ti bike. My gravel bikes share all their wheelsets between them and I really can't say there's much ride difference between the two bikes. I spec'ed my Ti geometry very slightly differently than my carbon bike, but it was based on achieving a very similar fit. I think if I matched their fits exactly I'd struggle to tell the difference in a blind test.
My Ti build is an identical groupset to the carbon bike and similar price points between the two on all other components and I think the carbon bike is approximately 1kg lighter, but I'd bet if I was spending Reilly money the gap would be a lot smaller. I also chose a pretty chunky fork for my Ti bike because I wanted weight-rated bosses on it for possible front rack use (rather than just cargo cages) and if I recall correctly that was a weight penalty of something like 300g over a cargo-cage-only fork. So I'd guess in the case of the Reilly you're probably in the range of 500g heavier than an equivalent carbon bike.
That Reilly looks great and with the integrated cables I'd imagine the aero penalty over even an aero gravel bike is minimal, with the aero gap getting narrower as your tires get wider and start to obscure any advantage that carbon might have in profiling the downtube and seat tube.
Looks like it probably has a 31.9 seatpost since it mentions dropper routing but that's worth clarifying before purchase. If I ever put a dropper on a gravel bike I'd do it on my Ti one before my carbon one. But 27.2 would give more compliance (especially if you switch to a carbon seatpost). Tire clearance is great. I'd have them put bag bosses on the top tube if that was an option. Otherwise I'd say it looks pretty ideal!
My first gravel bike was carbon and I still prefer to ride and race it for pretty much any duration up to 36 hours, but once I did my first bikepacking trip on it I knew immediately that I needed to have a Titanium one as well. Gravel dust plus bikepacking bags behaves almost identically to a carbon cutting hacksaw blade, so even though I spent hours applying protective frame tape I just never felt any peace of mind about taking the carbon bike on multi-day trips. (Thankfully Tailfin and the like are addressing that pretty well now but that's beside the point here.)
My Ti frame isn't as nice as the Reilly but neither is my carbon one, so I'd say they're equivalent tiers. I'll echo what Steve says - how you build it up makes more difference to how it rides than anything else. If I put the wheels from my Tarmac SL7 on it I can feel the extra compliance, but honestly that probably says more about the Tarmac than the Ti bike. My gravel bikes share all their wheelsets between them and I really can't say there's much ride difference between the two bikes. I spec'ed my Ti geometry very slightly differently than my carbon bike, but it was based on achieving a very similar fit. I think if I matched their fits exactly I'd struggle to tell the difference in a blind test.
My Ti build is an identical groupset to the carbon bike and similar price points between the two on all other components and I think the carbon bike is approximately 1kg lighter, but I'd bet if I was spending Reilly money the gap would be a lot smaller. I also chose a pretty chunky fork for my Ti bike because I wanted weight-rated bosses on it for possible front rack use (rather than just cargo cages) and if I recall correctly that was a weight penalty of something like 300g over a cargo-cage-only fork. So I'd guess in the case of the Reilly you're probably in the range of 500g heavier than an equivalent carbon bike.
That Reilly looks great and with the integrated cables I'd imagine the aero penalty over even an aero gravel bike is minimal, with the aero gap getting narrower as your tires get wider and start to obscure any advantage that carbon might have in profiling the downtube and seat tube.
Looks like it probably has a 31.9 seatpost since it mentions dropper routing but that's worth clarifying before purchase. If I ever put a dropper on a gravel bike I'd do it on my Ti one before my carbon one. But 27.2 would give more compliance (especially if you switch to a carbon seatpost). Tire clearance is great. I'd have them put bag bosses on the top tube if that was an option. Otherwise I'd say it looks pretty ideal!
