Anyone ever heard/seen/ridden at 6/4 Douglas bike?

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by the bottle ride

I think litespeed/lynskey were the only companies to make 6/4 bikes (others than drop outs etc).

A number of companies have made 6/4 titanium frames, and some still do. A compete VAARU bike with 6/4 titanium frame will set you back only 11,750 GBP ($14,600). Reilly Cycle Works will sell a 6/4 titanium frame only for 5,349 GBP ($6,650).

Reynolds supplied mechanically butted 6/4 titanium seamless tubing. These tubes are difficult to make and very expensive, and they are likely the only company to have made these. I had thought they stopped making these, but as Reilly at least claims to use double butted seamless 6/4 tubing, perhaps Reynolds still does make it.

[skiezo]

From what I recall 6/4 Ti could not be made into seamless tubes. The sheets had to be rolled and seam welded. If the seam weld was not properly aligned they would fail. I don't remember if the seam was supposed to be in tension or compression ..

[the bottle ride]

Those prices are loco- I wonder if anyone actually has bought one.

Re: Douglas.
I would not hesitate to grab one- the quality is/was good
Especially if you are a bigger rider.


Now I kind of want to find an ultimate…. Or just keep waiting for my white whale (Merlin XLC in medium)

Originally Posted by Mark McM

A number of companies have made 6/4 titanium frames, and some still do. A compete VAARU bike with 6/4 titanium frame will set you back only 11,750 GBP ($14,600). Reilly Cycle Works will sell a 6/4 titanium frame only for 5,349 GBP ($6,650).

Reynolds supplied mechanically butted 6/4 titanium seamless tubing. These tubes are difficult to make and very expensive, and they are likely the only company to have made these. I had thought they stopped making these, but as Reilly at least claims to use double butted seamless 6/4 tubing, perhaps Reynolds still does make it.

[bthomas515]

Originally Posted by the bottle ride

Those prices are loco- I wonder if anyone actually has bought one.

Re: Douglas.
I would not hesitate to grab one- the quality is/was good
Especially if you are a bigger rider.


Now I kind of want to find an ultimate…. Or just keep waiting for my white whale (Merlin XLC in medium)

Yeah, I think I might try it and see how it rides

[Butch]

I'll throw in a little info about 6/4 as a seamless tube and as well as formed/shaped welded seamed tube.
In the early 2000's at Moots we built, pretty much Brad Bingham built, an aero frame from welded seamed 6/4 sheet I sourced from a Cali company that originally made the "tubes" for Lightspeed before they did it in house. This frame never made it into public consumption because it was kinda heavy, kinda laterally flexy, aero shape and all, hard to work with, expensive and didn't bring anything to the table for us.
The issue with the welded sheet is it was never very thin for the dimension so it weighed a fair bit amongst other things.
The conversation about modulus and stiffness is good but what we and Reynolds found with the tubes they made is that when Reynolds went through the butting and also swaging process it cold worked the material to make it considerably stiffer, so the tubes could be thinner.
The secret sauce with these tubes was a starting material that was 6/4 ELI seamless material that Teledyn Wah Chang in Albany Oregon made for prototype for aerospace. The aerospace industry decided against using it because of expense etc but North American Alloys bought up the remaining material. We used it originally for PF 30 shells and for large diameter headtubes. It machined wonderfully because of the extremely low interstitial oxygen (Steve at NAA referred to this material as "super" ELI). With such low O2 levels the material set up very well to be butted and so Keith at Reynolds worked with a company in England, Fine Tubes, to reduce the 2" diameter input material down so he could make bike diameter and wall thickness that worked very well for frame.
We at Moots jumped on this as did DeRosa. I have a frame made from this material, all tubes 6/4 except the headtube as this has a 1-1/2" headtube out of 3/2.5 for a straight steerer fork. The great thing about this frame is I could build a bike with smaller diameter tubing, thinner wall with a stiff responsive ride. We made many 6/4 frames using the Reynolds tubes for the three main tubes, Vamoots SL and Compact SL. We used 3/2.5 for the chainstays and 1/2" 6/4 tubing from Sandvik for the seatstays. My frame has Reynolds 6/4 chainstays as well. When we built the frame the dropouts came out about .25 mm narrow. I have aligned many many frames, but this one could not be moved as the chainstays are so stiff.
Once the material was used up both Keith and I looked globally for a replacement 6/4 input material but could find one that could be manipulated the same way as the ELI material.

[bthomas515]

Originally Posted by Butch

I'll throw in a little info about 6/4 as a seamless tube and as well as formed/shaped welded seamed tube.
In the early 2000's at Moots we built, pretty much Brad Bingham built, an aero frame from welded seamed 6/4 sheet I sourced from a Cali company that originally made the "tubes" for Lightspeed before they did it in house. This frame never made it into public consumption because it was kinda heavy, kinda laterally flexy, aero shape and all, hard to work with, expensive and didn't bring anything to the table for us.
The issue with the welded sheet is it was never very thin for the dimension so it weighed a fair bit amongst other things.
The conversation about modulus and stiffness is good but what we and Reynolds found with the tubes they made is that when Reynolds went through the butting and also swaging process it cold worked the material to make it considerably stiffer, so the tubes could be thinner.
The secret sauce with these tubes was a starting material that was 6/4 ELI seamless material that Teledyn Wah Chang in Albany Oregon made for prototype for aerospace. The aerospace industry decided against using it because of expense etc but North American Alloys bought up the remaining material. We used it originally for PF 30 shells and for large diameter headtubes. It machined wonderfully because of the extremely low interstitial oxygen (Steve at NAA referred to this material as "super" ELI). With such low O2 levels the material set up very well to be butted and so Keith at Reynolds worked with a company in England, Fine Tubes, to reduce the 2" diameter input material down so he could make bike diameter and wall thickness that worked very well for frame.
We at Moots jumped on this as did DeRosa. I have a frame made from this material, all tubes 6/4 except the headtube as this has a 1-1/2" headtube out of 3/2.5 for a straight steerer fork. The great thing about this frame is I could build a bike with smaller diameter tubing, thinner wall with a stiff responsive ride. We made many 6/4 frames using the Reynolds tubes for the three main tubes, Vamoots SL and Compact SL. We used 3/2.5 for the chainstays and 1/2" 6/4 tubing from Sandvik for the seatstays. My frame has Reynolds 6/4 chainstays as well. When we built the frame the dropouts came out about .25 mm narrow. I have aligned many many frames, but this one could not be moved as the chainstays are so stiff.
Once the material was used up both Keith and I looked globally for a replacement 6/4 input material but could find one that could be manipulated the same way as the ELI material.

These are the stories I come to Paceline for!

[dddd]

The Douglas titanium road frames were not all made by the same company.

Some (more expensive, less common) were made by Litespeed.

I've got one of the ordinary ones, it's a very plush ride and stiff enough for this lightweight rider in I believe a 56cm size having a decently-long head tube and level top tube.

I also have a practically-new one of these frames with same Reynolds Comp fork and 1" headset in the 58cm size languishing in my inventory.

[duff_duffy]

For some odd reason I have a 6/4 Airborne Torch on my need to have list. Maybe some on this thread has one, let me know!

[bthomas515]

As an update, I traded campy group and wheels I had sitting for the bike today and immediately rode it through a Smoky Mountain scenic parkway

Rode really nice. Also impressed with the fulcrum nite wheels and their braking.