Has anyone gone down the design-it-yourself route of getting a Ti bikepacking frame made up in China? A la http://www.spanner.org.uk/

We had a tandem in for a service made from Chinese titanium, it was horribly flexy! The design was a classic though, so suspect that either titanium isn't good for tandems or the tubing profile was poor. Either way, I wouldn't be putting my own money down based on that one

Wifey's winter road bike is from XACD, I know of a few other people riding their frames too. No reported problems with the road stuff, I don't know anyone riding one of their MTB frames but I'm sure Google will through up some results.

NO, I'd probably talk to Brant at Pact Bikes if I was looking at the Ti custom route. He's designed a lot of bikes...

How knowledgeable are you about bicycle design?
(e.g. angles/dimension and handling, tube sizes and their influence on ride quality, manufacturers specs/tolerances for brakes/gear components etc.)

If the answer is 'not very' then I would look at a nice custom steel bike where you can discuss/work with an experienced UK based framebuilder and have a discussion on what you want.

You can get a good, cheap titanium bicycle frame from China but it is risky and you can't send it back if you've made a mistake and it's built to the agreed drawing spec.

ianfitz wrote:NO, I'd probably talk to Brant at Pact Bikes if I was looking at the Ti custom route. He's designed a lot of bikes...

That.

Give him a good idea of what you're after and let him worry about the rest. We must have had 30 or so emails flying back and forth when I was getting him to supply my B+/29er hardtail. The fact that you can choose fundamentals like tube lengths and angles is backed up with little details like bottle cage mounts, cable routing etc. I'm very happy with the result.

ianfitz wrote:NO, I'd probably talk to Brant at Pact Bikes if I was looking at the Ti custom route. He's designed a lot of bikes...

I didn't mean to shout no! Just a caps lock error. I don't feel quite that strongly about it

RoyAB did and has been riding the bike the past 3 years without issue. I think his was based on a Genesis IO geometry specced up to 29er wheels.
I will alert him to this thread, so he can feedback.

I'd look up Triton for good value Ti, or Pact. Both will have advice from a use, tube set and geo perspective that's well worth paying a bit more for.

I got interested in bike design while speccing a ti road frame that a US builder made for me. They chose the tubes, I did the geometry and details. Road bikes are pretty easy to get right, it's just fit and half a degree +/- here and there. tbh the frame was awful - fit and geo was fine, tubing was a noodly mess... I asked for stiffness over very light weight, I got what I'd call a light whippy bike. It's subjective and can be hard to quantify. The second frame was much better and to be fair to the builder they did it at a rate I was happy with.

I bought a road frame from Pact earlier this year - very happy with the frame, less so with the customer service. Brant did deliver exactly what I wanted for a good price, but it took about twice as long as he'd initially told me. Make sure he's not too busy with trousers before ordering.

chris n wrote:I bought a road frame from Pact earlier this year - very happy with the frame, less so with the customer service. Brant did deliver exactly what I wanted for a good price, but it took about twice as long as he'd initially told me. Make sure he's not too busy with trousers before ordering.

I think Brant is always busy, he's just sort of person.

When he gave his talk at Peddaling Ideas he was getting whatsapp messages from a woman in china he is designing a mobile phone with!

jameso wrote:I'd look up Triton for good value Ti

+1

I've had 3 frames from Triton over the years. The first was way back when they farmed out some work to XACD. It was not great, but it was cheap (like £550 or something).

2nd and 3rd have been made by Triton themselves since they got a larger workshop and more staff a few years ago, and the workmanship is just amazing. Welds are beautiful, custom CNCed bits are lovely and the rest is finished off with Paragon Machine Works dropouts, headtubes etc. Prices have gone up though.

This is the exact dilema I found myself in earlier in the year, I had triton, sonder, pact, travers, Shand, stooge and another Chinese company with a very good reputation i can't remember the name of now.

In the end I went with a Stooge as I completely love the look of them and really enjoy how it rides especially on plus wheels it's nuts so much so that I bought a ti model with custom geometry. It's a tough choice and the Chinese options look very good value but I think that the customer service of a uk brand just gives you that little bit of peace of mind if there is any issues.