Bitd

Dear All,


I had a theory that there are second hand listings of titanium cycles that actually are sold by people not knowing what they have.
Yesterday I purchased this beautiful vintage Douglass cycle with this idea in mind. I payed 40 euros, about 45 usd.
Before i saw it i had a strong believe it was a titanium. Now that i own it i believe it even more.

The frame is not magnetic. All the welds are for my idea done handcrafted and finished very raw.
The welds also don't feel like aluminium to me & the color of the bike screams titanium.
I also believe handcrafted aluminium frames are less common & the bike feels a bit to heavy for a aluminium bike (although i never lifted this type of frame in aluminium)


From the little research i have done and found i found the company Colorado Cyclist that sold / sells Douglass cycles.

From the looks of a snapshot taken in 1998 by Colorado Cyclist they sold Litespeeds at low pricing.
I believe there is a chance they are actually talking about these Douglas frames.
My theory is that Litespeed or another company sold the less clean welded or just less detailed Titaniums re branded under Douglas .

I contacted Colorado Cyclist today in the hope they own some background information or catalog. will update this post when i get a reply :-)

I think the not extremely cleaned up welds makes the bike look epic and could have resulted to this lower price class litespeed as referred to by the website in 1998.
For me this only makes the bike look more raw & beautiful🙂 It really shows its craftsmanship.
If its Titanium the fat welds make the bike even more unbreakable & if its Aluminium I would still love the bike to death appearance wise.

From the looks of it it was exported to Germany because it carries a German stVO sticker telling that the bike is not approved for road use.

imgur.com /a/ BBfb81z

pics from before purchase (except the last pic)

imgur.com /a/ EZ0vJSv
Some new images. there is also a image of the snapshot from waybackfinder (CCyclist 1998) and an image of the only large scratch on the bike made by a chain lock.
It seems to have scratched through the anodized layer and made the metal discolor to black.

I'm not an expert but titanium does blacken when not anodized, do you know it that looks a bit like the image?

I would like to pick your brain with the following questions
What do you think of it appearance wise?
Do you think its Titanium?
Do you know anyone with a vintage Douglas or anything about the brand?
What parts would you change / put onto it?
Would you love it to death :-)

Thank you for your reply!


PS: please repost the images (pic assist ) :-)

Thanks!

MrK.

Anxiously waiting on fixed pictures!

T-Mar

As stated in your other threads, I can't imagine a titanium frame with a kickstand plate, which is typical of department store level bicycles. Weld workmanship is poor. It's almost certainly aluminum. Components are also lower end. They look like Shimano Acera and Altus or knock-offs. Selective photo assist.

TenGrainBread 

@Bitd It's definitely not a titanium bicycle. It's an aluminum bike. The welds appear to be done with a MIG welder via a spool gun, which is cheaper and messier than the standard method of welding aluminum bike frames, TIG welding. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but it is a low-end aluminum bicycle. That's not to say it can't ride or work well, but it's not a high-end titanium bike. As a professional welder I have to say the weld quality is quite poor on this bike.

mechanicmatt

At this point I can't tell if you are trolling us or not. This looks like no titanium bike I have ever seen. It looks like an early department store aluminum bike. There is some signs of a Canadian Douglas brand as apposed to Colorado Cyclist's Douglas (Litespeed) brand, maybe that's it. Litespeed in the 90's did a lot of strange things but sell a ultra low end mountain bike and crappy welding is too low for them. This is either a fake, a scam, or restickered product.

I'm sorry I have no more patience for this. If you would listen to T-Mar (whom is an amazing expert on frames) or anyone else on here trying to give you advice you would have known.

DrIsotope

Those welds are... bad. Really bad. And on aluminum. Titanium frame welding tends to look a bit more like this, as it's done by people who know what they're doing:

mechanicmatt

I would also add, that I may off base here too. I want all new members to feel welcome and you should feel so. We are attempting to give you some advice, and if you want some tips for purchasing an unknown Ti branded bike, I'm sure there are examples out there, but maybe come here with some questions first so we can help properly. There's likely some people on here from the UK who can give you some ideas of what European brands may have done Ti. I know European titanium products tend to have Sandvik Titanium tubing so that may be a starting point for you.


I'm sorry if I came off hot, I truly can't tell if you are being serious with this stuff or not.

squirtdad

basic scientific problem falling in love with a terrible theory then trying to make the facts fit the theory

or just trolling

bike is junk or close to junk..... worth 40 euro sure.... super titanium find no

mechanicmatt

Look for TST, Crescent Gram, Baldwin, and High end models from Mongoose, Kona, DBR, and Fuji from the mid 90's, those are fairly obscure and may bring you better luck.

mechanicmatt

And one last thing. Aluminum frames are somewhat light, lighter than steel. Weight is not a good judgement factor with these things. In general, Aluminum will have fat welds, Ti will have smaller, neater welds. The tubing is so valuable that if mistakes were made in welding the product, it was likely scrapped to be reused somehow. No titanium factory let stuff get out there without it looking like the premium price it deserved.

DMC707

The polished finish looks nice

clean it up and ride it

I don't think it is the same Douglas that was affiliated with Colorado Cycles , but it looks good enough to ride it with pride

shelbyfv

Apparently that level of ignorance can exist on either side of the transaction. I agree that it is very crude.

2cam16

Definitely some cheap big box store type of bike.

Bitd

First of all, thx for all the replies, even the pretty painful ones.
sorry i annoyed people and i wasn't trolling i was just a complete moron, i do this a lot in life. taking risks & trying new things will do that.

The basic scientific problem falling in love with a theory was quite right. i believe this bike was indeed fixed up for a scam, only i wasnt the target(thank god because i would probably be that idiot) .

just did a small trail on the bike for fun and i scratched the hell out of the thing. had a blast ridingiit though, its quite a fun ride. although what looks and feels like metal polish is actually metal paint in a quite convincing color. so convincing i didn't even bother to check the frame for conductivity. BTW:the only scratch (photo under the seat post) actually reveals a black under layer.


my old(in love with) theory was that the bad welding existed because it might have been more economical to let a titanium welder in training learn by welding the real thing & selling cheap instead of practice welding on test parts. now i think you just dont get to work with titanium until you weld the **** out of every other material.


mig and tig welding i hadn't checked, indeed mig welding TI is pretty uncommon.

so.. what is this weird silvery bike?

If its really the worst welded aluminum bike in history painted silver, why would someone in his right mind import this to Europe and never scratch or ride it?

I had to wrap my head around this and slowly the idea about it being a scam became the most plausible explanation. thx mechanicmatt for the hint

So.. time for a new theory

Some scam artist in germany bought a bike or bike frame, actually did some research into heritage by selecting a company making ti bikes in the 90s & actually went into great detail with the stVO sticker. welded a bit of material to the frame to make it look handmade & painted it silver. then some unlucky bought it for a lot more than 40 eur. It somehow ended up at a bike repair shop oblivious to this story, he slapped on some spare parts as a fixer upper and made it into the bike a idiot(yes me) bought.

The first thing i did was link the exact storyline i wrote at the beginning of this thread and filled in every red flag with fantasy . so.. this bike did for the second time exactly what it was fixed up for.

If this theory is true ,and i dont know.. I know its also very farfetched. its a story i can laugh about. But in the end it mightbe just a romantic story made up by me. I mean just to be able to tell the story like this in a bar would put a smile on my face and make it worth my time :-)

Will i fix it up?
I would like to ride it with pride.
Even though it rides very good and i still like the industrial look i cant take myself seriously anymore riding it, it feels like wearing a shirt with worlds biggest idiot. if the theory is true, probably the paint will let loose over time anyway. so if anyone is interested in a titanium bike, let me know;-)

PS if you have a better theory please let me know. surfed the entire web for this bike but so far its at least an oddity.

If its not douglas, what do you think it could be?

Thanks all :-)

Cyclist0108

That is the first tip-off that it is aluminum. Titanium is paramagnetic (it has 2 unpaired d-orbital electrons). You cannot magnetize it (unlike steel), but it is weakly attracted to a magnet.

noglider 

A working bike for $40 is a good value, even if it's a cheap bike. Enjoy it.

clubman 

Don't overthink it. You paid a small amount for a bike that you may or may not like. Agonizing over it is a waste of time, unless you're on said bike and riding.

Next time, you'll have a better idea of what to look for and this bike will be forgotten.

Mad Honk 

Bitd,
Maybe it is like you said you were a moron on this. But we have all done something like this before, maybe not on bikes but on something, so don't beat yourself up on this one. For $45 you got a bike that runs and is something that was re-branded to sell at an up-charge. For the most part it has some cheeky story behind it, and that is worth something in itself. As a writer you can always make a good story about the experience, which is what I would do. You have had a bunch of good bike folks help you out with the details of the story. I guess I would say you are the proud owner of a bicycle designed for fraud on the buying public and you can make the case for why folks need to beware of these scams.
Even so you have only invested $45 on a learning experience that you can ride, and likely re-sell (with disclaimers) for $45. I have spent far more for some things that turned out the same way. Smiles, MH

scarlson 

Looks fine for $45, honestly. On the market in Cambridge MA it would fetch $150.

No one has yet put forth a good way to tell Ti from Al. I've tried the magnet trick before, and it's iffy depending on alloy and grain structure of the metal. Even a good hard drive magnet doesn't feel attracted at all to the 6al-4v titanium rails of my Terry Liberator Ti-Race saddle, for example. Therefore, here are two good ways.
1) Take a razor blade with you. Can you shave off a chip from a discreet place on the frame? If yes, it's Al. If no, it's Ti. Plus, if the owner thinks it's Ti, he shouldn't be worried about you taking a razor blade to his frame. If he's a charlatan mountebank,
2) Use a grinding wheel. Even a tiny one like a Dremel will do. Just as long as it throws sparks when you grind steel. Touch it to a discreet spot on the frame. If it throws no sparks, it's Al. If it throws bright white sparks, it's Ti.

This second one, known as the spark test, is my favorite. I'm at a major research university, and I get tons of weird metal from the physics lab trash. Some of it is pretty exotic stuff, but I never know what it is at first glance. Between spark tests and magnets and cutting chips from it, I can usually figure it out close enough.

TenGrainBread 

@scarlson As I'm sure you know, looking at the weld bead is probably the easiest way to tell. The aluminum weld should be quite a bit larger than a titanium one.

scarlson 

Yeah, true enough. And those craters indicate wire-fed work almost for certain, as you say. While this is an easy one to judge, I know that a lot of artistry can be done with welds, and you've got to have an eye for them and really look. It's dependent on the observer and sparks discord because of the human-judgment element. A razor blade or grinding wheel removes the human element. The razor is definitely a high-carbon steel, the grinding wheel is definitely abrasive spinning fast enough to spark, and they will give a definite yes or no answer, no matter whose hands it's in. If you can be allowed to do it.

Plus spark tests are coool Yeah, I actually just wanted an excuse to talk about spark tests. Everybody should know about welding processes too, I agree.

Bianchigirll 

IMHO in this age of; American Pickers, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, Antiques Road Show, Ebay and the internet in general people selling something great for cheap seldom happens. More often they are convinced their $5 tchotchkes are valuable antiques used by Napolean to conquer China


A welded on kickstand plate is certain a good sign this is a low end bike frame. If that is titanium it was built by some unemployed drunk submarine builders in Severomorsk

T-Mar

I'd be reluctant to call this bicycle fraudulent, without having seen the original advertisement posted by the seller. Multiple brands with the same name are not uncommon in the bicycle industry. There was Hercules from Germany which was unrelated to Hercules from England. I've seen unrelated Canadian and British Falcon that were marketed concurrently. There's probably been about a dozen different Monarch brands sold over the ages. The Douglas logo on the subject bicycle doesn't look like the Dougls (Precision) logo I've seen, so may well be a legitimate, unrelated brand. There's nothing to stop another company from using an existing brand name, unless it has been trademark registered in the country where the product is marketed.

So, unless the seller specifically said this was Douglas Precison bicycle or that the frame was titanium, it all comes down to the buyer taking an uneducated leap of faith. As I stated to the OP in another thread, faux titanium finishes were a popular marketing tool to give bicycles an upscale appearance.

Given the apparent level and era, the brand is essentially a moot point, as the vast majority of these bicycles were contract manufactured in Eastern Asian factories. It could be Taiwanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, etc. The serial number may provide a clue to exact year and country of origin.

wrk101

Worst welding I have ever seen. Does not affect functionality of the bike.

I would NOT put any money into it, other than making it rideable. Bike around here would be about $25. Could be more in your area. 40 Euro is not out of the question.

I would not call it fraudulent either, without seeing the ad. Sellers often know very little about their bike. I saw a 1974 Nishiki Competition advertised yesterday. I would call this fraudulent! "This is a Japanese competition racing bicycle. Built by nishiki for the French bicycle race. This bike is vintage and needs new tires. Has built on pump for tires. Made from titanium so it is very light weight."

ryansu

I know from funny and that was funny Comrade