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BUYER'S GUIDE
Kinesis Tripster ATR V3 frameset - riding 5.jpgBest titanium road bikes 2024 — invest in the ultimate luxury bike frame material for something truly special
Owning a fine titanium bike is a bucket list ambition for many cyclists, because while steel is a really nice material for making a bicycle frame, titanium is an even nicer choice. At road.cc we admit to a major soft spot for titanium bikes and we've tested dozens of them over the years. These are the best titanium road bikes you can buy.
- Best overall: Kinesis Tripster ATR — Buy Now for £2,200 (frame and fork) from Kinesis Cycles | Find out more
- Best on a budget: Van Nicholas Ventus — Buy Now starting at £2,590 from Van Nicholas | Find out more
- Best race bike: Moots Vamoots Disc RSL Di2 (frame & fork) — Buy Now for £6,500 from Saddleback | Find out more
- Best luxury option: Mason Aspect — Buy Now starting at £5,200 from Mason Cycles | Find out more
- Best cyclo-crosser: Moots Psychlo X — Buy Now starting at £5,800 from Bespoke Cycling | Find out more
Titanium road bikes were once rare and expensive because titanium is notoriously difficult to work with but the cost of a titanium bike has dropped significantly in recent years. Titanium road bikes are now, if not affordable, at least a viable alternative to top-end steel and carbon fibre bikes.
Titanium bikes are prized for the longevity that comes from the metal's resistance to corrosion and fatigue, and for its rather lovely silver-grey colour.
With a density between steel and aluminium, titanium is a great material for bikes; a titanium bike can be lighter than steel without the big tubes of aluminium or carbon fibre. Fans of titanium bikes also point to a 'springy' ride quality that helps them float over bumps
On the downside, you can't get a titanium bike repaired at any old local framebulder; welding titanium requires the right equipment and skill.
The best titanium road bikes
Best overall: Kinesis Tripster ATR — Buy Now for £2,200 (frame and fork) from Kinesis Cycles
The Kinesis Tripster ATR can handle a really wide range of riding, and it's a beautifully made, comfortable and responsive titanium bike. There's very little we wouldn't be happy doing on it. It's sensibly priced too; by no means a budget option, but not stratospherically expensive considering its level of refinement.
ATR stands for Adventure-Tour-Race and that's the clue that it was Kinesis' ambition to make this bike as versatile as possible. The frame is beautifully put together. The welds are extremely neat and the minimal graphics – and laser-etched head badge – are just what you want on a titanium bike, leaving most of the bike as bare metal.
Throughout a huge range of types of ride, and lots of commuting and shorter excursions, the ATR confirmed itself as a composed and comfortable ride. It's quick if you want it to be, but also relaxed and easy to pilot. For the most part, it's lovely.
The latest incarnation, the Tripster ATR v3 includes the Kinesis Range carbon fibre fork.
Best on a budget: Van Nicholas Ventus — Buy Now starting at £2,590 from Van Nicholas
Although the Van Nicholas Ventus is classed as the company's entry-level option, the way it performs is anything but. This bike is simply great fun to ride. There is a surprising amount of stiffness in these slender tubes, though in no way does it lose that lovely springy titanium ride. It's a looker too, and quite the bargain.
For 2021 Van Nicholas has made some tweaks to the Ventus to bring it up to date, for a modern take on the performance road bike. It's swapped out the rim brakes for hydraulic discs, incorporated 12mm thru-axles, and upped the tyre clearance to 28mm – not huge, but that's plenty of rubber for a race bike.
Best race bike: Moots Vamoots Disc RSL Di2 (frame & fork) — Buy Now for £6,500 from Saddleback
The Moots Vamoots Disc RSL is one of those bikes that, once you've had the chance to ride it, you just aren't going to want to give back. It delivers the performance of many high-end carbon fibre race machines while retaining that beautiful titanium ride. As in: how can a frame as firm as this still offer such a sublime feel and so much feedback?
Like all materials used in frame manufacturing, though, everything still comes down to great design. Tube profiles, wall thicknesses and geometry are the key, and Moots has absolutely nailed it with the Vamoots Disc RSL.
When you get aboard the Vamoots it's great to feel just what can be achieved with titanium. This frame feels incredibly tight, and just goads you into pushing it as hard as you can into every bend or straight that you can find. It's just so balanced. So much feedback through the frame and fork that you can be properly at one with the machine, every ripple felt and change of camber dealt with by just the tiniest flick of the handlebar or shift of bodyweight.
Best luxury option: Mason Aspect — Buy Now starting at £5,200 from Mason Cycles
The Aspect from Mason Cycles is a thing of beauty, not only in the way it looks but also in the way it rides. The frameset offers so much depth in the way it behaves thanks to the tubeset, the fork and the geometry all working together to give a sublime ride quality and an excellent level of feedback no matter how rough the road surface is.
Titanium frames often have a very specific feel about them, offering that smoothness of a quality steel frame yet with a firmness edging towards that of an aluminium alloy one. Mason has exploited this very cleverly indeed.
Best cyclo-crosser: Moots Psychlo X — Buy Now starting at £5,800 from Bespoke Cycling
The Psychlo X from legendary framebuilders Moots is a extremely talented titanium bike, with bags of speed complemented by comfort and assured handling. It's adept at cyclo-cross racing but is really capable of rides of far bigger scope and imagination than an hour around a muddy field, the mainstay of 'cross races in the UK. It's a popular bike with the gravel race and adventure set in the US, and if you want a bike of such capability, the Psychlo X will fulfill your wishes.
J.Guillem Major 105 — Buy Now for ~£2,900 from J.Guillem
If you want the performance and stiffness of a carbon fibre race bike but with the subtle hints of a titanium ride quality, the J.Guillem Major definitely needs to be on your shopping list. Its comfort levels might be at odds with the UK road surfaces at times, but boy does this thing shift, and it looks a beauty too.
The Major isn't a race bike but it does have more than a nod to performance, so the fact that it is quick shouldn't come as a huge shock, but just how well it did perform blew me away.
Putting a little more pressure on the pedals and removing it from the saddle and, to an extent, my arms and wrists, took the edge off the firmness and the Major felt like a completely different bike.
Mosaic RT-1 — Buy Now starting at ~£5,000 from The Bike Tailor
US titanium frame builder Mosaic Bespoke Bicycles hail from Boulder in Colorado, founded by Aaron Barcheck who used to work for Dean Titanium Bicycles. That expertise shows in the RT-1, a finely built titanium frame with custom butted, size-specific 3Al/2.5V titanium tubes with a full bespoke option available. The ride performance is, as you’d hope, excellent, with a pleasingly taut characteristic that likes to go fast, all of the time.
Sabbath September Disc — Buy Now for £1,200 (frame, fork & headset) from Spa Cycles
The Sabbath September Disc is an titanium road bike aimed at riding Audax events that’s right at home on the daily commute, club ride or sportive, with disc brakes and the titanium frame joined up front by a carbon fibre fork. The September Disc was one of the first breed of new versatile titanium bikes designed with disc brakes, and the 3Al/2.5V takes up to 35mm tyres with mudguards. If you want one bike to do just about everything, with the exception of racing, the Sabbath is a fine choice.
Enigma Evoke Ti — Buy Now starting at £4,500 from Enigma Bikes
With the same front triangle, including a 44mm head tube and downtube, as the Enigma Evade titanium bike we tested a few of years ago, the Evoke is Enigma's 'fast endurance' bike, now equipped with discs and the necessary frame and fork refinement to make them work well. If it's like the Evade — and there's no reason to expect otherwise — it will offer a rewarding ride for those cyclists that like to press hard on the pedals.
Ribble Endurance Ti Disc Enthusiast — Buy Now for £3,299 from Ribble Cycles
Ribble has been very clever when it comes to the design of its Endurance Ti Disc Enthusiast. By using tube profiles that exploit the natural smooth ride feel of titanium, and geometry designed to offer the compact, aero position of a race bike but without the associated fast and sometimes twitchy handling, Ribble delivers a bike you can ride quickly and comfortably regardless of the distance.
Bike designers and testers often wax lyrical about the ride feel you get from a titanium frame, but it's true – it's one of the best out there. Just like any frame material, though, the tube profiles, wall thicknesses and the way each tube interacts with the others all play their part; get it right and your titanium frame will deliver a smooth ride that removes plenty of high-frequency road buzz feel while still delivering on stiffness.
Ribble has got it right. Long distances on the Enthusiast are a joy – you can really cover a lot of miles very quickly, and it'd make a great audax or sportive machine – but it's not just because of the comfort levels coming from the frame and fork, it's also to do with the geometry.
Honourable mentions
Van Nicholas Rowtag — Buy Now starting at £3,454 from Van Nicholas
The Van Nicholas Rowtag is a new titanium bike that's capable of fast gravel blasts and multi-day adventure rides. It isn't the quickest off the line, but if you want stability, versatility and durability, you really can't go wrong here.
Van Nicholas bills the Rowtag as a 'crossover gravel racer' and it offers a stable ride whatever the terrain you're tackling. It's one of those bikes that holds its line well over pothole-strewn tracks and fast, bumpy descents, giving you loads of confidence to push the speed.
Litespeed Cherohala 105 — Buy Now for £4,499.99 from Pedal Revolution
Allroad, that's what Litespeed has labelled its Cherohala SE frame, which builds into a titanium bike that's just as happy on the tarmac as it is on the local towpath or gravel track. It's not perfect on either, but it has a surprisingly large crossover area which makes for a fun and quick ride.
With its heavily sloped top tube and tall head tube, the proportions of the Cherohala's frame didn't look like they were going to offer up an exciting ride on the road. Not so. This thing is quick. Not in an adrenaline-fuelled, mass-acceleration or demon-descending kind of way – that's not what it's about – but if you want to cover big distances quickly without fuss, this is a great titanium bike to do it on.
Read our review of the Litespeed Cherohala SE
Find a Litespeed dealer
Reilly Gradient — Buy Now for £2,199 (frame, fork & headset) from Reilly
South Coast-based Reilly Cycleworks has produced the Gradient as a do-everything adventure and gravel bike, with a lovingly finished titanium frame and smart specification in the complete bike we tested. It provides a ride that is as lovely as the bike is to look at, with space for wide tyres for heading off into the wilderness or adding dirt and gravel roads to your route, and a high level of refinement.
Snowdon Paradox — Buy Now for £3,999 from Snowdon Cycles
The name of the first model released by Bristol's Snowdon Bikes is apt – the Paradox. It doesn't look it, but this speedy flat-bar titanium road bike will take many a drop-bar carbon whippet to the cleaners. And your lower back will thank you.
J.Laverack J.ACK — Buy Now for £2,775 (frame & fork) from J.Laverack
One of the newest brands offering titanium road bikes is J.Laverack, with the debut J.ACK, a titanium frame with disc brakes and internal cable routing. The J.ACK has been designed to conquer any road or off-road surface, with space for wide tyres (up to 33mm) and plenty of clearance around them for mudguards. All cables are neatly routed inside the frame to keep the lines clean.
Reilly T325 — Buy Now for £1,899 (frame, fork & headset) from Reilly
The brand of the late Mark Reilly, the T325 is the most affordable titanium bike in the range. Reilly's 30 years of frame building experience shows in the frame, which is lovingly designed with neat details such as an externally reinforced head tube, oversized main tubes, space for 28mm tyres and internal routing for a Di2 groupset. At a claimed 1,275g, the frame is a worthy alternative to a carbon fibre race bike.
J.Guillem Atalaya — Buy Now starting at ~£3,800 from J.Guillem
With exquisite attention to detail, understated looks and a cracking good ride on road, forest paths and gravel tracks, with space for wide tyres on 700C or 650B wheels, the J.Guillem Atalaya Gravel is an enticing choice in the premium titanium gravel bike market.
Shaking down a rough bridleway, tyres scrabbling for grip on the dry dirt, before emerging back on to a country lane, all smiles and giggles, we were won over by the J.Guillem Atalaya Gravel with its feeling of control and capability on a variety of terrain.
That's the beauty of riding big tyre road bikes, of course, but not all gravel bikes are cut from the same cloth. With the Atalaya there's enough compliance to help it deal with everything from poorly surfaced country lanes to bridleways and forest tracks.
Things to know about titanium bikes
Titanium bikes are desirable because titanium is lighter than steel and stronger than aluminium or most steel alloys. Titanium's high fatigue resistance means a titanium bike should last forever. It’s those traits that have ensured it has continued to be a popular choice with cyclists wanting a fine riding bike that will last the length of time. Plus of course there is the fabled ride quality of titanium bikes, which is reminiscent of a steel frame with plenty of spring and high comfort, but it can be used to build a stiff race bike depending on tubing diameters and profiles.
Most titanium bikes have frames made from 3Al/2.5V tubing (where titanium is alloyed with 3% aluminium and 2.5% vanadium) and 6Al/4V, a harder grade of titanium, is seen on much more expensive framesets. Because it’s hard and expensive to make 6Al/4V into seamless tubes, it’s often used for machined parts like dropouts and head tubes.
The unique colour of titanium ensures it stands out against most other road bikes. Various finishes are available, the tubes can be brushed or bead-blasted and can even be painted if you prefer, but many people buying titanium do so partly for its unique and timeless appearance. A titanium frame will still look good in 10 years time.
Titanium has been used to make bicycle frames for about 30 years. In the early days, there was only a handful of brands specialising in titanium, and US brands like Seven, Serotta, Litespeed and Merlin built an enviable reputation for their expertise with the material. Titanium frames are now commonly manufactured in the Far East which has led to prices coming down quite a lot, into the realms of affordability for many.
About road.cc Buyer's Guides
The aim of road.cc buyer's guides is to give you the most, authoritative, objective and up-to-date buying advice. We continuously update and republish our guides, checking prices, availability and looking for the best deals.
Our guides include links to websites where you can buy the featured products. Like most sites we make a small amount of money if you buy something after clicking on one of those links. We want you to be happy with what you buy, so we only include a product if we think it's one of the best of its kind.
As far as possible that means recommending equipment that we have actually reviewed, but we also include products that are popular, highly-regarded benchmarks in their categories.
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You can also find further guides on our sister sites off.road.cc and ebiketips.
road.cc buyer's guides are maintained by the road.cc tech team. Email us with comments, corrections or queries.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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Have you tried halloumi chips instead ?
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Of course ! Cyclists are free loaders who commit road crimes with no come back !
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Interesting, tho they only take narrow 20" slick tyres. I'd want to be able to use 1.75 Maxxis DTHs.
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74 comments
Spa Audax Ti - I built up from frameset 3 years ago with Ultegra and home-built H+Son wheels for less probably than some of the titanium framesets reviewed here. In fact, the price difference is so great as to be a bit worrying. The added joy of riding it helps me along with winter rides. The rim brakes just about reach; mudguards and 28s.
Yeah agreed, Auren is fully customisable ti and still cheaper than most of these. Ship globally for free too.
http://aurenbikes.com.au
I've just bought a Dolan Titanium ADX - Ultegra R8050 DI2 £2674.99 with internal cabling. How's that for value for money?
There are disc versions and a gravel bike also in their range which others may wish to consider.
I own a T-Lab X3, an all-road titanium bike (custom build), which I've fitted out mostly for the road. I find the bike exceptionally comfortable, but also quick to respond and stiff when necessary--titanium at its best. As the picture shows, I've added a John Jones custom carbon wheelset, so the bike is much lighter than it was with the specc'ed wheels.
I was disappointed not to see T-Lab, a Canadian company, represented among the 16 titanium bikes tested. (Maybe it was tested and didn't make the cut, but this would be interesting to know.) In any case, if the testers aren't aware of T-Lab, I hope they'll contact the company and test a bike.
At the end of June 2020 I put in an order for a Dolan ADX Ti with 105 R7000 rim brake version...but there were delays due to frame supply issues.
Instead of getting a refund I decided I'd wait, but changed my order to the 2020 Disc Brake version, keeping the groupset as 105 (R7020). I also decided to upgrade the wheelset to the Ksyrium SL UST (25 mm Yksion tyres) and bumped up the bars/stem to Deda Zero 1. All in price of just short of £2700 (including a small discount for my inconvenience of missed delivery date and accepting to upgrade rather than obtain a refund for the original order - business is business. I also changed out the stock saddle with my preferred Fizik Arione R5 (separate purchase).
Apart from the wrong bar tape being fitted (later receiving the correct bartape from Dolan, which I'll fit at a later date) the bike came (October 2020) and was up to my expectations - given that is in the lower price bracket for Ti bikes. I am still running the UST wheelset with tubes fitted and will (eventually) change over to tubeless. There is also massive clearance on the front fork, and the fitted Bluemels guards, look like they are too high, might need to fab a lower fitting bracket to make it look/perform better.
I got an end of season J Guillem Major via Planet X in 2018 Ultegra build for a bargain £1800.
It is a fantastic frame now upgraded with Hunt wheels.
I'm sure that if I could be bothered I could predict Road.cc's article recycling cadence.... Noting that my last post was three months ago, I'm going to mark the date for this one and the next few recycled articles to see if I can predict when they are going to crop up again.
Still another 5 and a half weeks for me to wait for my new Ribble Endurance Ti (but just 105 for me).
Enigma: YMMV.
Titanium is lovely stuff. It's just so much more elegant a material for engineering purposes than carbon fibre. It lasts longer too.
The Reilly Gradient you keep showing in this list is really, really outdated. The new ones look much nicer.
https://www.sturdycycles.co.uk/
Pricey, but oh so nice!
Just want to give a massive titanium shout out to Justin @ Burls Custom Titanium Bicycles - www.burls.co.uk
They built me a custom bike last summer and it's an absolute Joy! Fast & Smooth.
Frame + Fork + Headset + Thru Axles - £1940
Get in contact, made to measure!
That Snowdon Paradox looks like an outsize Islabike...
You were done mate! THIS is a bargain:
not feeling the ugly oval toptube, people buy ti bikes for the round tube retro look
There's a lot going on in that photo
However, there's something about raw titanium off-set by black.
Very frustrating, with the great weather we have been having
That bike looks stunning!. I've been thinking of Titanium as an option for a new bike and have been looking at burls. Hard to find any online reviews.
How long did the buying process take?
I feel such a fool... sent the Dolan back and bought this instead.
Curse you Road.cc and your wayward hyperlinks
Not me.
Thats for Steel imo, spindly steel tubes will always have a place in my heart.
Merlin (and others) have been ovalising and spiralising Ti for 20+ years now. Others doing similar with steel of course.
IMO the ovalisation on my Gradient makes it look like Sex on a Stick.
I'd forgotten Dolan bikes existed. Never see them in reviews etc these days...
The carbon ones are very well priced and pretty decent in my experience (son had one to replace the dead ti Ribble mentioned below).
I'll take an RT-1 please 😍
It would have been useful to have seen a bike from Planet X included in your list, they are way cheaper than some of the boutique brands but I’d love to know how they compare ?
I'm currently looking at the Planet X Hurricane. Not sure whether to go for the Force 22 version (as I've never used SRAM) or the Ultegra. The SRAM version is €200 cheaper, but I'd need to splash out on a set of 165mm cranks, as they only offer 172.5mm on the bikes... they have offered to change out the cranks (special buy in) but it'd be an extra €100...here was me thinking bnuy the SRAM, save €200 to put toward better wheels (stock is Fulcrum 900).. but hey ho...
The Tempest was designed by Mark Reilly and has virtually identical geometry to the Gradient, but appears to use less custom tubes. Certainly worth a budget punt - I almost did.
I think the problem with PX is that they are pretty light on their engagement with the cycling press - apart from a loaner to Cycling Weekly every couple of years.
Still no Lynskey...
On the subject of Ti frames lasting forever... my Lynskey Ridgeline 29er cracked in the top tube just in from of the head tube. Yes they do break. However, Lynskey took it back without question and fixed it. Not only that, they re-polished the whole frame and put new decals on. Awesome service.
I bought and built up a Lynskey Backroad touring bike in 2013 when the Aussie dollar bought USD1.08 because I wanted a tourer with disc brakes to replace my 20 y/o Trek 520. The frame then cost about AUD2000. It was such a lovely bike to ride that a few months later I bought another Lynskey, but this one was a Sportive Disc, and it's a great bike for long rides too. I've topped 75kph on the tourer while fully loaded and it was as solid as a rock, but I did think about how much bark I'd lose if I came off.
The picture of the loaded Backroad was taken in SE South Australia at a small town of Beachport
how can you trust their frame again? titanium weld crack means there is fundamental issue with their welding process
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