slybacon

Hi all i am considering building a new bike utilising a titanium frame that will hopefully last me a lifetime. i have looked at many and the one i like that is well withing my price bracket it the Boken Miru from 7 hundred store.
Does anyone have any experience of this frame or any other recommendations for me.
i really want the frame to take up to 40mm tyres and also have internal cable routing. max 3k budget but may go over for right frame.

Iride01 

Welcome to BF.

However why build a bike that must last you a lifetime. Then you'll only experience one bike and there is a great possibility it will turn out not to be the best bike for you. Or at any rate your desires for what a bike should be will change over time and as you gain other interest in cycling.

So my recommendation will be to build something inexpensive and gain some experience. When you get enough experience with all sorts of bicycles then you won't have to ask others what will make the best bike for you cause by that time you should know what you do and don't like and what you need.

veganbikes

It looks like a rad frame, I love titanium myself. I would agree with Iride01 on the lifetime thing, I have built many bikes over the years that have been lifetime bikes and maybe one of them is (ish) but like they said tastes change. My touring bike is not what I really want now at the time it was skinny tires and old school ethos and a 3X9 now I would do a 2x11 wide tires, alt bars, thru-axles, hydro disc brakes... I still love the old bike but want to do so much to it but am so limited by it.

I think the big thing to ask yourself is what you plan on doing with it and do you think that frame could accomplish it. Then if so pick parts that you think will work with that and enjoy it.

Koyote

Titanium frames do fail, largely because the welding requirements are so much more rigorous than for steel frames. So I would take the "lifetime" bit with a large grain of salt.

On the other hand, I've owned a steel frame for 25 years that was used, abused, rode hard and put away wet a gazillion times...And it never failed. Right now I also have a steel frame (much more modern, thin-walled tubes) which will soon celebrate it's 20th birthday...It, too, has been ridden a lot - about 45k miles - and not babied at all. Still going strong.

veganbikes

That is true that they can fail if they are not welded properly but if you have a company that knows what they are doing the likelihood for failure is pretty low at least at the welds sort of thing.

I do have 3 titanium bikes at the moment and haven't seen any weld issues two I believe are from the same place and one is from somewhere else but all of them look like clean welds and the company that made two of them has a good reputation for proper titanium welding.

Clark-Kent had welding issues later in their history I believe after outsourcing their ti-welding. I rarely hear about failed titanium frames these days but I am sure it happens like with any frame material though yes steel generally is easier to weld so there is a little less margin for failure but in the end anything poorly welded or overstressed can fail so when picking a bike find one that will do the job you want it to do.

chaadster

Wait… y’all don’t think the OP is a troll?! BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!!

70sSanO

Welcome to BF. Hopefully someone will come along that is familiar with Boken. From a quick search it looks to be UK based.

Nothing wrong in buying a road frame that will last decades and allow you to upgrade along the way.

John

easyupbug 

Looks like a wise selection to me, especially considering you are in the UK and in my limited soggy experience there Ti is a good choice for lifetime. Boken cold work and stress relieve the top quality tubing as do all top tier builders, and I believe that Adventure fork is an ENVE which again is top tier. Having arthritis in my hands/wrists and back on bad days I ride a trike, so so days Titanium is easiest on me over carbon and steel, and great days I get to ride my vintage and custom lovelies so again a good lifetime frame.

freeranger

I thought this might be about a "broken mirror"!

slybacon

Thanks all ,,
the reason i want titanium is because i already own a steel tourer i built myself (surly) a carbon road bike (pinarello) and a carbon gravel bike (ribble) and would like a titanium so i don't need to worry about scratches or any surface damage to frame. I accept it may not last a lifetime but i think titanium has a better chance and will still look good in 15 years time when i hopefully will still be cycling in my 70s and i would also like to think i will have my tourer for many years also, where as my carbon bikes can easily be damaged or i may want to replace them for more modern bikes in the future.
The boken frame in particular captured my attention as the price looks pretty good and it ticks all the boxes i want from a frame, (no flashy emblems or brand on frame, hidden cables and lightness ) but i still can not fine anyone who has experience of this frame or and reviews so i am a little hesitant to spend my hard earned cash on something i know nothing about.

chaadster

Oh, well apparently you’re not a troll or shill, and so I owe you an apology. Sorry. I shouldn’t have been so cynical. In my defense, I was posting at 1:30am after a night of boozin’… 😬

To your questions, then, while I don’t have any knowledge of Boken (nor 700Hundred, though that it’s a real shop is cool), I do understand your concern over buying an unknown. I don’t know if you know more about the brand than I do, but it is a big zero for me: this is the first time I’ve heard of this brand. That’s not a stopper, right, but a little pedigree helps.

Looking at the frame, it seems quite nice, although the chainstays seem quite small at the bottom bracket, and I wonder if that would contribute to flex? I’m a heavy, strong rider though, so that may not be a concern relevant to lighter, less aggressive riders. For similar reasons, I’d prefer to see a tapered headtube. But in all, the frame looks nice, they say the right things in the pitch, and I don’t see any red flags.

But what are the comps? Right off the bat, I’m thinking of the Kinesis Tripster ATR v.3, which is £100 more, but is a brand with chops not only in the bike design department, but in tubing manufacture as well, so the pedigree box gets checked off there. The ATR also appears to remedy the chainstay and headtube concerns, while also pulling the seatstays forward across seat tube to further shore up the rear triangle. I also like that the ATR has more sophisticated tube shaping throughout— for example, as in the top tube; they use a similar design in the aluminum Racelight 4S, which I have and appreciate— and various little detailing like the forward facing seat clamp relief, the milled-out brake mounts, and the posh, satin finish. Kinesis publish a frame weight, but Boken do not.

Speaking of finishes, Simon Cotic’s Tonic Ti would be a comp as well, with it’s jazzy polished finish and cool, wishbone seatstays; I was angling for one of those before I bought my T-Lab. Of course, Ribble’s CGR Ti would be comparable, too, but the pricing takes a bit of a jump, there.

veganbikes

Sadly I don't know anything about them but I would ask them who makes them. The welds look good in the pictures they have and everything seems right. If they are doing it overseas ask if they are partnering with ORA in Taiwan, they do a very good job with titanium frames and make them for a bunch of companies including Salsa and other QBP brands (or former brands).

Mason Cycles always seems to get good reviews but it will be more expensive: https://masoncycles.cc/products/bokehti-frameset I happened to be looking up Boken and it also found the Mason which is what I first thought of when I read your post.

TiHabanero

I am on my third titanium frame and have an observation or two for you. in 2001 I designed and built my own steel frame using lugs and a vintage Reynolds 531 tube set. By far it is my favorite frame to ride as I designed to to fit me exactly as I prefer. Ten years after I built that frame I bought an off the shelf road frame from habcycles.com. I loved that bike with the same degree of feeling as my own design, except that it is a very different ride experience due to frame design. That frame was replaced with another habanero cycles frame, except this time it was their cyclocross frame. Coupled with the wonderfully comfortable Surly cross fork made from steel, it is supremely comfortable to ride, easily as good as my own design.

The cross frame was given to my son who still rides it, and I went back to a road frame from habanero cycles simply because it is a different ride experience from my own design. I still love my old steel frame, and still ride it, however I also love the habanero frame because it is so different in design and gives me a different experience when riding it.

The question begs, why am I attracted to titanium? Two reasons, they don't get scratched or chipped and they ride like a well crafted high end steel frame. That's it. I have lots of ride time on carbon frames from back in the 90's to the current mash of gravel and road. My preference always returns to steel, and then to titanium because I don't like having chips and scratches in the finish of my bikes.