Titanium Bike frame for $250 AU

[ak-tux]

Here is a poor man's cruzbike. The parameters are taken from my DF road bike: head tube angle 72 degrees, trail 70 mm, wheel base 1040 mm. The back rest angle is 34 degrees.
The rear wheel is an old 36-spoke wheel with 32 mm tire. The front derailleur hanger is a standard one; The center of the slot to the center of BB is 145 mm, and the angle of the stalk is 63 degrees ( 65 degrees if you want to use 3-piece chain ring). The drive train is Microshift Centos 11; it has two shifting levers. I tried both standard (53/39) and compact (50/34) chain rings, all worked very smoothly.
Don't ask me the bike weight because I don't have a accurate scale, on bath room scale, it shows a little bit over 10 Kg.

Very nice @dtseng !

Correction, though, a Ti frame does not qualify as a "poor man's" bike !!

 

[bladderhead]

V nice indeed, dtseng is a genius.

When can I have a Cruzbike made of double-butted Reynolds 531, with twirly-cut lugs?

 

[dtseng]

There is a renaissance in using steels for building bicycles. I got one DF road bike last year and it's made of Columbus steel. Modern chromoly tubings are no longer 4130 of yester-years; they generally have higher chromium content to increase strength and hardenability. The most advanced bike tubings are maraging type (Martensite Aging) of steels; they not only have high strength also have nearly stainless characteristics (e.g. Reynolds 953). I know a factory in Taiwan can draw triple-butted tubes in which the central section wall thickness is only 0.3 mm. I hope there will be steel framed Cruzbike in the future.

I am learning to ride my new Ti MBB bike, the total milage is still less than 50 Km. I only have a brief experience with Q559. Owing to the lighter front end of my Ti bike and therefore less steering inertia, I could ride it the very first time and made 90 degrees left and right turns. I am now trying to get the hang of the essence of pedal steer, that is to use the pedals to control the bike. In addition to pushing the pedals straight forward, one can also apply side-way force at the pedal to steer the bike. In this way, one can ride MBB bike with no hand. I also want to mention that Microshift Centos 11 drive train works very smoothly using two shifting levers. The brake levers are only for brakes.