aliasfox

No complaints from the wife, and she sees it everyday. We live in a Manhattan apt and it's just hangin' out next to the couch until it gets taken out to play.

... we're still talking about bikes, right?

Litespud

I don't know anymore...and I don't think I want to know...

scuzzo

yep litespeeds are crap... just awful,, and ulgy... oh wait a min...

strike that.. they are pretty amazing bikes and i would buy another used one in a second.... big bang for buck and im a clyde and at 6,3 no washy BB no flex on the bike anywhere... just one hell of a great bike and dont know about ABG,,, i just know this bike is solid and its a blast to ride fast..

merlinextraligh

Missed my point. It wasn’t about the bikes; it’s about the company ABG. I wouldn’t not buy a used Litespeed at the right price. I would never buy a new Litesped from ABG, with a price that factored in the value of a warranty that history shows they’ve failed to honor.

So if you can find a used Litespeed at a good price ( which in part be the result of the beat down ABG put on the brand) fine. But I stick by my point I would never buy a bike from ABG, and if you want a new ”Litespeed”, the best ones carry a Lynskey badge.

Litespud

👍😀

whatshubdoc

So what do you guys think about the T1sl?

easyupbug 

If your goal is speed at some reasonable level of comfort may be just the frame for you, but for the OP and at my age it would likely be a one ride frame.

whatshubdoc

I used to ride a Tarmac. Now I ride a Synapse, but the "snap" just isn't there when I get on the gas. I bought it because of the taller head tube as I had back surgery.

I recently got a chance to ride a Seven 622S and a Lemond Ti and LOVE the way the road feels like honey, thus went down the rabbit hole of looking for a Ti bike. The T1SL has a tight back end (406mm CS, shorter than Tarmac/Cervelo R series!) with a neutral 73* HTA (less twitchy than Tarmac, prob same as Synapse, which I like), and a BB drop of 71mm (love the 70-72mm). I'm thinking this would equate to stable turning, with very good acceleration. Am I wrong?

There are not a lot of reviews out there on the T1SL, and most sing its praises with no negative points, so that makes me a little skeptical.

thehammerdog

curious about this statement.
what box are you referencing here.
​​Ti can check every box.

PeteHski

Aero?
Ultimate stiffness/weight ratio?

thehammerdog

my guess is for the 99% of us.
​​​​yes....
thanks.

PeteHski

So if Ti checks ALL the boxes for 99% of us, why are we not all riding Ti bikes?

thehammerdog

because it aint cheap..its rare.
but you knew that..

genejockey 

Because the improvement over steel is not so huge that it justifies the big jump in price for people without deep pockets. I only bought a Ti frame because it's 27 years old and the seller didn't make it look all that great. You had to look under the clapped out components.

tFUnK

I've seen weight limits for wheels but not for frames. I wonder what the ANSI test standards are for bike frames?

PeteHski

But aside from cost, Ti doesn't tick every other box. You asked the question, so I gave you a couple of obvious "boxes" that it doesn't tick. Cost is another one, at least when comparing against other metal frames.
For me personally Ti does actually tick all my boxes, it's just that carbon ticks some of my boxes for a frame even better - mainly it's better stiffness/weight ratio in my case.

thehammerdog

my bianchi mega tube ti frame is silly stiff.
glad you like the bike you ride....thats the goal.

PeteHski

You can make any material silly stiff, but you can't change its fundamental stiffness/weight ratio.

seypat

Added cost of those benefits is most likely the reason most don't go the Ti route. Same for most things. I detest the long throw of Shimano brifters. The price of electronic shifting means that's not an option either. I'll always be 2 or 3 Shimano systems behind so that I can use Microshift brifters (gasp). That's just me.

Sy Reene

If in an alternate universe, Ti was as easy and as cheap to make into a bike as CF is, then all the manufacturers would be marketing and selling Ti, and CF would be the more niche product. There is no margin in Ti (or decent steel) -- ask yourself why any large bike manufacturer doesn't even offer 1 model of Ti bike. A quick look at eg. Spesh's website indicates they offer 124 models of CF bikes, and 86 Aluminum. Really no room for just 1 Ti model?

PeteHski

CF is neither easy or inherently cheap to make into a bike. It is very labour intensive, raw materials are expensive and requires very expensive equipment. Layup design is also very technical. If you were a one-man-band then you would actually find Ti easier to work with - as difficult as it is to fabricate. That's why you don't see many small outfits making custom carbon frames and the ones that do tend to work with stock carbon tube rather than full monocoque layups.

Sy Reene

Custom is a different story. Scroll thru Aliexpress for an idea of rock-bottom costs. The cheapest ti frames are typically 3x that of CF. CF may be labor intensive but I imagine its lower-skilled labor assembling them. Ti frames look to be about $800-$1k, but finding sub $500 CF frames is pretty easy. There's nothing wrong with CF and it's a great material for bike frames, but I'd wager the margin on these is double what they could get on a Ti frame that they'd still be able to find buyers for without pricing out of the market.
Probably a bad analogy, but maybe like comparing a Tissot $300 quartz battery watch with a $300 Tissot Automatic. Probably the Quartz watch keeps better time and probably has a better margin.

thehammerdog

indeed.

Litespud

My Litespeed is lightish but not super light (nominally 1350g for the frame), but a state-of-the-art 6/4 Ti frame in 2000. A friend brought his larger custom Ti bike (Kish, Carrboro NC - 3/2.5 Ti, built ~2020) around to my place for a bit of work, and when I lifted it onto the stand, I was amazed at how much lighter his bike was than mine (transient weight-envy, but I got over it). We have identical wheels and similar group sets (I have Chorus 10, he has Chorus 11). Ti fabrication has no doubt advanced in the 20-year difference between our bikes, but someone else suggested that mass-produced frames tend to be overbuilt because they have to conform to set standards - ANSI, for example - up to and including destructive testing, while custom frames don't have to. A custom frame can be as light as the builder thinks it can be for a given user/application, while mass-produced have to cater to the worst-possible situation (ie, the heaviest possible customer). My frame is likely way stronger (and heavier) than it needs to be for me. If you want to realize all the possible benefits of Ti - corrosion-resistance, comfortable ride and lightness - it seems that custom is the way to go.

PeteHski

You can't really compare the two skillsets directly as they are completely different. CF involves highly skilled design of the layup and the manual production skills are similar to dress-making. At the highest level it is a very skilled job and individual pieces can be very intricate. But you can cut a lot of corners to make a cheap CF frame. You can use low quality materials, low skilled labour and skimp on the layup design. The end result once painted might look much the same as a high-end frame, except with much lower strength and integrity. A top quality carbon frame is never going to be a cheap product. It requires a lot of IP and experience to do it properly. With a Ti frame it's a lot harder to cut corners in production. It's fairly easy to see the quality of fabrication. The design process is much more simple too.