Litespeed Ti ?

[cnighbor1]

when did Litespeed switch to using Ti made in Chinese? and frames started cracking . I owned two Litespeed and mine are mine. I see some good buys but hesitate to buy do to the Ti make in China problem
Thanks
Charles
PS I also know about the rare drop out problem and those breaking

[Black Dog]

Well here is an answer to your question from the horses mouth. I emailed litespeed a few months ago in regards to the source of there Ti. Here is the reply from the factory.

All our titanium frames are hand built here in the USA. We
use a combination of USA and International sourced tubing and when we
receive any tubing here at our factory we then work it further to our own
Litespeed tubing standards which is beyond aerospace grade for roundness,
straightness, wall thickness, etc. We have some competitors that are not
honest with their customers and say they are only using USA tubing when in
fact we know this is not true, so don’t believe everything you hear. With
any tubing supplier that we work with whether USA or International we always
check the metal properties (we send off tubing to a lab to be tested) and
further test the tubing in house as well to insure it is to our Litespeed
level of quality/strength. When we partnered with JPL (Jet Propulsion
Laboratory) for the work we did on the landing gear of the Mars Rover
"Curiosity" we became members of the International Titanium Association and
discovered that a lot of the USA tubing suppliers are actually sourcing
their tubing internationally and then just working it in house to their
standards and marking up the price.

Chris Brown
Litespeed & Quintana Roo

[oldpotatoe]

when did Litespeed switch to using Ti made in Chinese? and frames started cracking . I owned two Litespeed and mine are mine. I see some good buys but hesitate to buy do to the Ti make in China problem
Thanks
Charles
PS I also know about the rare drop out problem and those breaking

I think it has more to do with who's doing the welding than the source of titanium(altho Asian and Russian ti is known to be kinda 'dirty', lots of junk in it..at least for Russian ti from a few years ago)..

[Kirk Pacenti]

I think it has more to do with who's doing the welding than the source of titanium(altho Asian and Russian ti is known to be kinda 'dirty', lots of junk in it..at least for Russian ti from a few years ago)..

^^^ This. I have always felt what the builder does with the material counts more than what it is, or where it came from. And, there are certain size tubes that you can only get from Asia... No US mill makes 1.75" tubes, for instance.

That said I have experienced real problems with tubing from Asia, mostly the smaller diameter tubes. At Lynskey we had to buy an endoscope to inspect the inside of all of our tubing, which on occasion lead to the rejection of entire shipments of tubing.

Cheers,
KP

[Ahneida Ride]

ChiTi ? :D

Russium ? :help:

[RedRider]

The builder's quality control is as or more important than the origin of the tubing. Labeling can also be misleading... "US Sourced" just means the distributor has an office in the US.
A little OT but I did hear a story that years ago, during the Cold War, when NASA needed titanium for a R&D project the CIA set up a dummy corp to purchase from Russia, the biggest manufacturer...

[Black Dog]

The builder's quality control is as or more important than the origin of the tubing. Labeling can also be misleading... "US Sourced" just means the distributor has an office in the US.


This^^^^. There seems to be a lot of hate around for litespeed and people saying that they are crap because they may use some Chinese Ti. Ahh the internet...:rolleyes:

[enr1co]

This^^^^. There seems to be a lot of hate around for litespeed and people saying that they are crap because they may use some Chinese Ti. Ahh the internet...:rolleyes:

My less than positive "perception" source of Litespeed came from a shop owner I used to frequent in the 90's. He pushed Merlins being a dealer of them but he also had pics on file of customer's Litespeeds with cracked welds. These were local customers of his who of course, ended up buying Merlins from him. Sales tactic? Yeah, but he also gained the trust and rep of great customer service by backing up everything he sold, i.e have the dealers fix the problem or refund $ back to the customer. In pre-internet days, this was enough for me to steer clear from one no matter how attractively they were discounted in the Colorado Cyclist catalog :p

Im certain they've made strides with their QC to date (as the brand is still around) but there are so many other frame choices available now that even past negative perception on frame welds is cause to leave it off my list of bike frames for consideration.