Bamboo bicycles, Titanium, and the Taiwanese home bicycle market

i know a guy who teaches how to make a bike from scratch. dm me

I considered Rikulau, but Iā€™m opting for Performer after a chat with my LBS. He suggested Rikulau were pretty inflexible, and he hated dealing with them. I trust his opinion, because he built my current, aluminium frame bike from the wreck of a carbon Defy, and itā€™s been great. The frame is a Performer Storm. So when I wanted to upgrade, Performer Titanium seemed an obvious direction choice, and hopefully itā€™ll cost me a significant amount less than a comparable Rikulau would.

The idea is to transfer compatible parts from my current, rim-frame bike to a new, Performer Leap 2.1 disk brake-compatible frame. Thatā€™ll mean new wheels and new brakes, plus whatever bits on my current frame (the majority of which started out life as parts of a Giant Defy) will fit on the Leap. The cost of the frame, plus the work of building it, is expected to be in the region of 55,000NTD. That also includes new disk brakes and new, db-compatible wheels. Plus, heā€™ll throw in a basic bike-fit for free.

Thanks for the tip! Iā€™m not in a hurry to do it - Iā€™m focused for the moment on getting my Titanium bike built - but learning to build a bike from scratch does appeal, not least so I can clearly understand how a bike works in every aspect.

Well, Titanium and Bamboo are mostly gimmick materials. Aluminium is cheap and abundant and can still make nice bikes out of, and carbon is still lighter and stiffer.

Just like a Titanium iPhone, there isnā€™t really a benefitā€¦