Post Bike Fitting: A Custom Bike? My first serious look at Titanium

Titanium framebuilding (via Google image search - probably a Moots frame)

In conjunction with my bike fitting at Cyclefit in early July, I initiated conversations with Julian Wall about having a full custom frame built. By this time, my investigations into carbon had come to a dead end, so my interest was now focused entirely on titanium as the frame material for any bike I might have built.

In the bike sales part of their business, Cyclefit work with some of the most amazing bike manufacturers in the world:  Serotta, Guru, Passoni and Seven being their partners offering custom titanium frames.

Passoni titanium frames

Take a deep breath: we're talking very high end, here, with prices to match! Frankly, the only option in my budget was the bottom end (straight gauge tubing) but nonetheless still amazing Seven Axiom S.

I was favourably disposed towards Seven as a result of following the Lovely Bicycle blog. So my plan was to have a Seven Axiom S frame built and then buy the components to build it up over the coming winter.

Based on my fitting, Julian prepared a draft drawing of what my frame would look like. Unfortunately, from that point, communications began to get crossed.... I thought he'd send me the drawing to look at before forwarding to Seven, instead it went straight to Seven but only (as I was to find out nearly four weeks later) after some delay.

Although I was inclined to buy frame and forks only (and do the build myself), Julian and I were already discussing what component choices would best achieve my fit requirements. We agreed at the fitting that the starting point had to be 160mm length crank arms. Julian found an online source that we looked at together, but he suspected they would be hard to find in stock. I did some online digging myself from home and found the same, so I asked Julian to prepare a quote based on an Ultegra groupset. After nearly a week, he sent through a quote just over£4,500 - gulp! That knocked that idea on the head!

Meanwhile, I'd still not seen a drawing of the frame. Most of yet another week passed before Julian forwarded a copy of an e-mail he'd received from Seven, with geometry stats and a drawing:

The proportions of the drawing looked right to me but I was surprised that it wasn't a full CAD-type drawing with all the measurements and angles included - something a bit more like this:

(c) Holland Cycles, Spring Valley, California  

Having the frame measurements/angles on a separate form from the drawing was not, I felt, very helpful. I asked Julian how this draft fitted in with my fit data (which I still hadn't seen yet either, although I was promised this at the fit appointment). Very strangely, the fit data he then sent to me was astonishingly incomplete, with some details being the direct opposite of what he and I had agreed during the fitting!

Bars below the saddle? No way. 

(I can only surmise that there was an inadvertent mistake in the office and I was sent somebody else's road bike set-up, not my own. I did not pursue this, given how things developed, but would have if the bike order had progressed.)

Further, I was aware of Seven's famous fit methodology, which includes an exhaustive personal fitting and/or completion of a supposed 50-page questionnaire. I presumed that my fitting with Cyclefit met Seven's requirements in that respect but expected to have at least some kind of follow-up chat, possibly a phone call from someone at Seven themselves, in the course of the bike design being formulated (I had heard this is common with international customers).  Meanwhile, I was taken aback to be told that, even now, Seven's drawings could only be draft at that stage until I had decided what components I wanted!  I repeated what we had already discussed. Other than a decision as to whether I wanted disc brakes (which would impact the choice of fork), I couldn't understand what justification there was for such a hold up in designing the frame. Yet, here we were, after nearly four weeks, without any kind of drawing or proposal that I could review and sign off for Seven to start building.

I was by now feeling increasingly disengaged and disillusioned with the whole process. Things seemed in such a tangle of crossed-wires and mis-communications, and I felt less and less inclined to try and get to the bottom of sorting it all out. So, with a great deal of regret, I told Julian that I was pulling the plug on the whole order. My deposit was swiftly refunded but I was back to Square One.

I had expected the process of designing and order a custom bike frame would be quite an intense experience and indeed it was:  I wrestled with hope and excitement on the one hand and fear and anxiety on the other, almost daily. However, what I did not expect -- or want -- to feel in that cauldron of emotions was frustration and disappointment. Those responses rang alarm bells.

As I said to Julian: "I do not feel that I've had any "say" in the design of this bike.... In short, this isn't my bike. I feel no connection with it whatsoever and no desire to see it built."

There is one thing I must make absolutely clear:  Julian is a very skilled bike fitter, I believe arguably one of the top 3 in the country.  I trust his judgment, his experience and his "eye". Any fit concerns I have in the future - I will go to Julian without hesitation. Things only began to fall apart for me after the fitting, when the relationship shifted to one where the end result would be the sale of a bike.

So - any readers in the UK looking for a fitter - I strongly recommend you go to Cyclefit.

But... once you've been measured and poked and prodded... then... unless you're happy to leave everything entirely in their hands and provided time and money are no object (and there will be some for whom that is the case)... clutch that fit data firmly in your fist and walk straight out the door.

Only then may the bike shopping seriously commence.