YOUR BIKE FOR LIFE!
FIVE TITANIUM RIDES BUILT TO LAST
If you’re thinking value, durability and long-distance comfort, titanium still has its place, as our five bikes show
The future is a funny thing. Back in the day, titanium promised to be the material for a new age: lighter than steel, stronger than aluminium and easier to turn into a bike than carbon fibre. So, why aren’t we all riding titanium bikes?
Well, since the first titanium bikes appeared in the 1970s the material hasn’t been able to compete with its competitors in terms of cost. But if you’re thinking about value, durability and long-distance comfort – with a dash of style – titanium still has its place. Our ti quintet are all designed for endurance riding, bikes for big days out and fast sportives with some of them taking in gravel and touring.
Spa’s Elan sportive and audax bike has been modernised with disc brakes and tubeless gravel tyres, while we kept it retro with a triple chainset (you don’t have to) and handbuilt wheels. Sabbath and Reilly have both produced faster, distance machines, each with aggressive geometry and rim-braked Shimano Ultegra. Sabbath’s new Mondays Child Mark II now has a PF30 bottom bracket and handbuilt wheels while we splashed our virtual cash on carbon Hunt rims and anodising for Reilly’s T325.
Kinesis’s GTD comes as a frameset you can spec how you want. We went for a slightly ‘modest’ Shimano 105 hydraulic groupset but upgraded to Reynolds carbon wheels. Our final bike is from one of the companies that popularised titanium in the UK – Van Nicholas. Its Yukon Disc – one of the few VN road models we haven’t tested – is a four-season titanium bike that’ll cope with touring and more, but still weighs in under 10kg and that’s with VN’s mudguards.