RobiEli

Sorry if this is the wrong area to post this. Also I can't post url's because I'm a Newbie.
I own a Cube Attain GTC PRO disc 2016 road bike

and I'm looking for a gravel frame to take all of the components from my road bike and place on the gravel. I've had my eye on this relatively cheap Chinese titanium frame on ebay (can't afford the expensive stuff), Tiorays titanium gravel.

Having little technical experience with bikes, other than changing flat tires (I'm pro at it 🙂, can anyone comment first on the frame (also Tiorays gravel fork) and 2nd how much from my Cube bike will I be able to use on the gravel frame? I'd like to retain the ability to swap back and forth between my 700x25c wheel set and a new gravel wheel set (looking at 700x50c). Can I simply buy the frame, fork, a new gravel wheel set and shimano 11-32 cogs for the rear wheel and I'm all set?

If someone feels this frame should be avoided, can you recommend a different frame in the same price range (including shipping) or cheaper that would do the job? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Update, in case you are looking to buy from Tiorays, the name was changed to TIRIS TI-BIKE.

Ogsarg

Personally I'd buy a steel frameset from a reputable company before getting Ti from China. You could get a Surley gravel frame with fork for a lot less and not have to worry about what you'll do about a frame with a bad weld that got shipped half-way around the world.

But if you've got your heart set on Ti, give it a go and report back.

veganbikes

If you cannot afford it save up until you can. Cheap bikes aren't worth it. Titanium is not a easily welded material and if not done right in the proper facility could end up being dangerous.

If you are desperate for something made overseas, Ora Engineering would be the place to go. They made my Salsa frame which is awesome and well put together and they know their welding so with a company like Salsa that can figure out the engineering side and geometry you have a good combination for something lower cost. Though if I would probably also consider Lynskey if I wanted cheap Ti and they are made in the U.S. and can be frequently found on sale on their website.

You probably won't be able to swap wheel sets easily unless you have the same spacing for both wheels but you could get one good set of wheels and swap tires pretty easily though I would just run a little wider tire for more comfort, less flats, and potentially more speed than a skinny 25c tire.

If there is something I want I save up for it and get what I want. Going cheap doesn't save you much and if you are like me you will probably eventually upgrade spending more money. Get what you want and if you need to you can probably work out financing with a lot of companies and some shops as well. We do financing at our shop and a lot of people use it so they don't have to go broke buying the bike and as long as they pay it off in 6 months they are interest free.

Maelochs

China is a great source for cheap CF because it doesn't tkae a ton of talent to lay up CF .... not saying it doesn't take care, but most of the difficulty is in the desing.

Titanium is notoriously hard to weld .... I have never heard of machine-welded Ti, and I Have heard about lots of Ti frames failing at the welds. I wouldn't spend the money for Chinese Ti, simply because warranty service might be difficult at best. Imagine if they asked you to ship the frame back. It might be a year in transit and come back with a bad patch weld .... Or they might send a new frame from the same welder, no better than the first.

However ... Chinese CF was still a relatively unknown quantity even five years ago. Maybe five years from now everybody will be raving about Chinese Ti, and you will be telling everyone how you got one of the first, and still ride it.

Take a chance. We all benefit.

RobiEli

Thanks guys for your feedback, greatly appreciated. I'll look into the options you mentioned.

Darth Lefty 

There’s a guy in the tandem bikes Facebook group who got a tandem coupled fat bike made in China, delivered recently. Perhaps you could look there.

Aladin

LMAO.. always the same opines on this channel. E-motions and no real world experiences. Comic shooten from the hip.. always.... gets old.


Not a big fan of over the pond .. me, yet am in process of evaluating Tiorays... fork. I see on the slim-bay over 2100 positive feedbacks w NO negs..

hard to accomplish in this 'shooten from the hip world'.


Keyboard queen comment: "Titanium is notoriously hard to weld".. Yes for a ****er w NO Ti training used to gluing steel tubes together w rods. But for a company specializing in Titanium like Tiorays.. that is a laughable assertion. Dig a little.. do some real world evaluations: you will find American Ti frames with likely HIGHER defect rates. Rationale: much higher labor costs, pressure to produce and the quality foreign market driving margins down. The illusion of buying USA quality is not there... they'll give one the run off on frame use.. etc. NOT all mind one.. but venture around.. definite variable.


Other thing on Tiorays.. MAIN appeal initially for me: the quality of the information on their shee**tbay ad. Covered all the bases.. intelligently organized... now a rarity of that venue--- "dumpster 'bay" in reality. Go compare that with what one does not see on frame builder sites around..

which often very vague. A few.. very--- have the 'tude they know what it best for the buyer.. often they do.. often they do not....===> Non starter.


Tiorays is worth an evaluation...no question.

UPDATE: I inquired for frame geo and they sent this over.

Atlas Shrugged

Like any other skill, the Titanium welding learning curve can be steep for someone without welding experience. However, if someone has TIG welding experience it's just about following appropriate procedures and it's no different than any other metal. In fact, it flows very smoothly resulting in pretty welds. The issue and reason for the high cost of titanium frames are that production is not very scalable and costs do not drop as rapidly as carbon when producing multiples of the same. Upfront costs for Titanium production is fairly low thus the high number of custom titanium builders with corresponding high labour per unit. Carbon is the opposite with high up-front tooling costs and less labour per unit making it perfect for production frames.

mstateglfr 

Is this Dory from Finding Nemo?

Charliekeet

Aladin is there a reason you can’t just say eBay?
“slim bay... sheet bay... dumpster bay” - how ‘bout ‘wtf are you trying to communicate-Bay’ ?!


Edit: and what does that website have to do with titanium quality assessment?

aclinjury

I'd take the "feedback" in here with a ton of dirt. These are not feedback at all. They look more like unfounded and unsubstantiated opinions based of out fear of buying cheap chinese products a decade ago. While I can understand this guarded fear, but they don't help me informed decisions. China is one of the biggest manufacturers of titanium components across all industry. They make expensive ti exhaust of exotic cars, components of planes, ships, etc. There is no reason to think that some small time American ti framebuilder would somehow have more technical knowledge and/or epxerience than the Chinese.

A good balance of buying cheap ti frame and the safety of mind of having a warranty is to buy from places like Bikedirect.

RobiEli

I've decided to go with a custom TI frame and fork from either Tiorays or Waltly. I'm only hearing good things about both companies. The problem I'm running into now is in order to keep my road wheels compatible with the new frame it has to have 100x12mm spacing and through axle for the fork and 142x12mm for the back with 19mm -25mm internal rim to be able to fit the tires I want, 700x45-50mm. The cost of wheelsets is ridiculously expensive lol....costing as much as the frame and fork. Can anyone suggest a decent wheelset for around $200-$300? Can I buy regular MTB 29ers or 650b instead and run them with through axle adaptors? Any suggestions/ideas would be great. Thanks.

aclinjury

$200-$300 for a new wheelset??? you kidding right?? even inexpensive chinese wheelsets cost more than this.

this may interest you but it's a little over $500 (however, you'd need to ask the seller if he can swap out the encaps of the front wheel for 100x12)
I would not let a $200 difference be a dealbreaker for building a bike. If you're hell bent on staying with 200-300 buget, good luck finding a used set on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Stans-N....c100005.m1851

Maelochs

As so often happens on BF .... a few people state opinions, a few people with different opinions claim to be omniscient, and dump on the rest.

I have not heard enough about Chinese titanium. Do Some companies in China make high-end, high-quality titanium parts?? Sure ... after all, Some companies in China make .... Rocket Ships and Satellites. That doesn't mean Every Chinese company makes quality anything.

I said I bought Chinese carbon after talking to many, many people who had long experience with Chinese CF ... and since I have not talked a bunch with people who have such experience with Chinese, Ti, I personally wouldn't be first.

Funniest thing ... I don't recall Anyone here either citing personal or second-hand info from people who had actually bought and successfully built and road Chinese Ti frames.

Probably the frames are fine .... probably customer service is average, and probably quality control is good enough .... And personally I am glad that someone I might hear form later, is deciding to play test-pilot.

Please keep us updated. This is the kind of info that led me to buy and build two of my favorite bikes. Maybe my long-term dream of building a Ti bike will come to pass with a frame from China someday.

RobiEli

No actually, I'm not kidding. There are plenty of budget gravel bikes out there with wheels good enough for my needs. I'm not looking to win any races here. Hard to find them sold separately though. I had in mind to buy State Bicycle's all-road-wheel-set-700c for $300 but to ship it to my country costs over $500 :/ I'm still searching for something comparable in that price range.

Maelochs

I have used Vuelta wheels successfully for a while .... apparently they used to have issues with soft freehubs but I haven't heard any complaints in a long while .... and I have only on pair of their disc wheels and have never taken them out for a beating.

RobiEli

Definitely better pricing, but didn't see what I need there. I'll keep looking. I guess if I can't find a complete wheelset within my budget I'll buy one wheel and get a custom built Ti unicycle

TiHabanero

Why not keep the current wheelset and get a Habanero ti frame? habcycles.com. I have had two of them and find them to be very good ti bikes. They have production frames at 995 bucks and custom frames around 1500 bucks. Their stock frames take standard QR axles.

RobiEli

They look like nice bikes but the Tiorays is a bit cheaper and the biggy for me is the ability to customize the frame for an exact fit, tire clearance, logos/graphics, rack and fender eyelets, surface finish etc. Also my current wheelset can only go up to 28mm tires. I'm looking to be able to hit the trails with 45-50 mm tires and swap in my road wheelset for when I go on road only trips.

Maelochs

Interesting .... $1045 for a disc touring /grave frame .... I can't decide whether to build for gravel with hydro or touring with mech discs.

Assuming i was about to buy one.

Look great, though.

veganbikes

Caveat Emptor

mstateglfr 

This took me 5min, and only because I decided to go to a few different sites. There are more available too.

https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/m...ls&ucpo=118090

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/...gaAtMDEALw_wcB

https://www.probikekit.com/bicycle-w...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/d...0c-181087.html

https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/f...et-120069.html

https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/f...0c-106663.html

https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/d...0c-118917.html

https://www.merlincycles.com/en-us/m...20-168696.html

rosefarts

Bikesdirect has cheap wheels, maybe they'd suit you.

I'm going to attack you for a minute here.

You want ti, you don't specify why you want it over other materials. Fine, ti is a high end metal known for excellent bikes. Then you mention that you want $2-300 wheels, even though good wheels are actually more important than the damn frame. WTF man, would you put tractor tires on a Corvette?

Take a $500 bike and put $1500 wheels on it, it'll ride nice.

Take a $1500 bike (or $4000) and put crappy wheels on it, it's going to ride like crap.

Occasionally I see used wheels for your price that are pretty good. I got some older ones at 1250g for the set, for less than that on my road bike a few years ago. It can be done but not quickly.

Another thing to think about. My mountain bike has 2.25" tires. The Bontrager rims it was spec'd with are like 17mm ID. Narrower than some of my road rims. Drives me bonkers but the tires fit fine. Yes they're more likely to burp, they're quite lightbulb shaped, but they work fine. I'd prefer 23-26mm id but it's really okay at my speed. Don't get too hung up on the size.

veganbikes

If I could fit Tractor tires on a Corvette hell yeah I would. Put it on a lift kit figure a good way to convert it to 4WD and have a pretty unique machine.

I would agree with a lot of what is being said here though.

RobiEli

Definitely, and I totally disagree with your statement from personal experience. For 6 years, I've been riding a fixed geared chromoly steel bike I bought from onecarless.net new for for $250 including a generic wheelset with 23mm tires (max psi). I also own an aluminum Trek hybrid ($600 bike) with a Bontrager wheelset (obviously much better quality than the generic fixie wheelset) with 42mm tires in the back and 45mm tire in the front (both running closer to the minimal psi to create a more comfortable ride). The steel fixie is ridiculously smooth and my Trek is very harsh on the bumps. I can only attribute that to the frame material since neither have suspension. I've heard many times that Ti has the same ride qualities as steel, much lighter and won't rust. I'd be happy going with a custom steel frame too if I found something around the same price range or cheaper from a reliable source but so far I don't know of one. I'm really keen on customizing the frame to fit my body and my personality. You'd have to agree that the Ti looks super cool too lol. Who wouldn't want to take a spin in a Corvette with generic brand car tires? (I think tractor tires is a bit of an exaggeration). So basically, I don't see the point in throwing out cash for an expensive wheelset when from my personal experience it's totally unnecessary.