Monday, January 24, 2011

Titanium

 TITANIUM


No. 216 Speedwell Titanium England, 1977
Lightweight professional road bike (8.2kg) from Speedwell, Birmingham. Titanium framework #67706 equipped with Campagnolo Record/Super Record plus some tuning parts. Early lightweight aero tubular rims from Assos, Switzerland, rear wheel with Campagnolo HiLo hub.
The fourth most abundant metal (behind Alumminum, iron and magnesium) and ninth of the nine elements that account for over 99 percent of the mass of the earth'd crust. Titanium is hardly "unobtanium,"despite it's reputacion. However, getting Titanium out of the earth and turning it into a bicycle parts takes a vast amount of energy.
 
A custom Lynskey
R340 with BB30 bottom bracket. Total weight = 15.5lbs

Part of Titanium's mythical appeal lies in the fact that is strenght-to-weight ratio ecxeed any other metal, and that is highly resistant to corrosion.

Named for the Titans of the Greeks mythology, the tensile strenght of some common Titanium alloys approaches that of high-strenght steels and far ecxeeds that of Alumimun, without being brittle. Perhaps more importantly, Titanium like steels and unlike Aluminum and magnesium, has a fatigue limit, meaning that if it stresses are kept belowthat amount, it will never fail from fatigue. It's a high fatigue limit at that, Thanks to it's high tensile strenght.

The young's modolus (stiffness index) of Titanium is arround half that of steel, but so is it's density. Titanium's density is high enough that tubes cannot be made as stiff for the same weight as Aluminum and magnesium ones, because heavier wall are require to to prevent buckling with larger diameter.

The anticorrosive properties of Titanium are extraordinar. Nuclear submarines are made of it so they won't corrode in caustic marine enviroments, and unpainted Titanium bicycles and components simply do n't rust.

Titanium is not brittle either; it can be be stretched arround as twice as far a steel and four times as far as Aluminum before been permanently deformed. This give Titanium frames survivability in crashes
, since they will be far more likely than others to spring after impact.

Finally the ride of a titanium bike is generally smooth, because a frame designercan choose a this tube diameters and wall thicknesses to provide a supple ride without sacrifing longevity.

Due to titanium's ability to strchand return to original shape, drawing it into tubing demands bigger and more powerful mschines than those required to draw steel tubing. Welding requires enclosure in an inert-gas atmosphere, and weld contaminationmust further be prevented throught careful cleaning. Machining titanium requires extremely sharp tool and specific speeds and lubricants; cooper-laden lubricants are used on titanium threads., and is not recommended to thread titanium parts into each other.

Titanium excels for bicycle frame tubing and dorpouts as well as for lightweight bolts axles and saddle rails.

http://urbanvelo.org/framebuilders/


Late 2002 Carbon Titanium Lemond Tête de la Course.
Gary Helfrich is the creator of the first titanium mountain bicycle and the founder of Merlin Metal Works that makes the famed Merlin brand of bicycles.
Consulting for LeMond on the company's titanium bikes project was pretty much the last thing Gary Helfrich did that was bike related before departing the industry in 2002.

Cyclingnews describes this bike as the genesis of LeMond titanium and "...can justifiably claim to be among the best in the world..."
Originally 00.
Has a brand new fi:zik arione saddle, new chain, new brake pads, new rear shift/brake lever, new bottom bracket, reynolds ouzo pro carbon fork, carbon seatpost, dura ace wheels, etc. This bike is the best money can buy. The frame is as light as many carbon frames but being made of titanium it is much stronger and can last forever.
Geometry:
ht 72 degrees
st 74 degrees
effective tt 51.9
standover 75.2
wheelbase 96.7

Titus Racer-X Titanium

The bike weighed in at 24.2 lbs as configured. The frame was a bead blasted naked titanium finish with the Eriksen logos laid on the down tube and the chain stays. It truly is a beautiful material and requires no paint as Kent indicated in the interview. The TIG welds laid down by Chris Moore are the best I have ever seen on any product anywhere in the world, and I been a lot of place. Unfortunately, I did not get to experience the Eriksen Sweetpost. These unique and often imitated seatposts are in high demand and they were out of stock, so I used the WTB carbon seatpost in place. An Eriksen 29’er titanium crafted frame starts at $3000 and you can add a Ventana rear suspension for an additional $300. Kent knows Sherwood Gibson personally and they have a licensing agreement with Ventana, Maverick and Yeti Cycles to use their rear suspension components. Kent doesn’t see any reason to recreate rear suspensions when these companies offer great products for him to use. The man has been around bikes for a long time and seen a lot of products, so I’ll take his word for it.

http://www.os2.dhs.org/~john/Bicycle_Geometry/

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