# ti spokes?



## aranesp (Jan 6, 2009)

Price aside, what are the pros and cons of Ti Spokes?

thanks in advance.


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## Zen Cyclery (Mar 10, 2009)

Ti spokes are never really a good idea. Yea they are lighter, but they are so much softer and spongier under power. It may actually make you slower in the end. Steel is real.


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## Zen Cyclery (Mar 10, 2009)

Mike T. said:


> How much experience do you have with using and building with Ti spokes?


Unfortunately one wheelset too much. Built one wheelset with Extralite hubs and Edge 25 tubys via Pillar Xtras. We ended up rebuilding the wheel with Cxrays because the customer said they felt much softer than his EA90s.


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## Mike T. (Feb 3, 2004)

Zen Cyclery said:


> Ti spokes are never really a good idea. Yea they are lighter, but they are so much softer and spongier under power. It may actually make you slower in the end. Steel is real.


How much experience do you have with using and building with Ti spokes?


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## looigi (Nov 24, 2010)

For what it's worth, Ti has about 1/2 the modulus of steel. They'd have to be 40% thicker to get the same elasticity but then there'd be no weight advantage.


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## Kerry Irons (Feb 25, 2002)

*Historical perspective*



aranesp said:


> Price aside, what are the pros and cons of Ti Spokes?


Ti spokes have been bandied about as a great opportunity for about 30 years. All the building experience I've ever read about (no personal experience) says the wheels are flexy due to the low modulus of Ti. It seems like they are more a show item for building super light wheels than a functional product. Sort of like a Ti chain.


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## rruff (Feb 28, 2006)

High strength titanium has ~60% of both density and stiffness compared to stainless steel. The Pillar X-tra Ti spokes have dimensions similar to CX-Rays except for a 2.3mm J (vs 2.0mm), so they are very light (about 1.8g lighter per spoke), and should have good aero characteristics. According to Pillar's data, this spoke yields at ~250kg. 

I haven't used them much because I considered them experimental... and it doesn't appear that many others have used them either. But theoretically a good application would be light MTB wheels or even road wheels (light and expensive) for light riders. 

In relative stiffness it is about the same as going from spoke with a 2mm center to one with a 1.5mm center (Revs, Lasers, CX-Rays, etc). That isn't a trivial amount! It's about the same as a 1.15mm SS spoke. 

It's best to use hubs that have a wide flange spacing.


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## MShaw (Jun 7, 2003)

I've built several wheels with em in the past. Laterally they didn't feel any different than steel spokes. Vertically it always felt like I had a flat. Strange feeling till you got used to it.

The spokes did fine for about 3 seasons then started to break.

If you go into it knowing that these are 3-year wheels and just want uber light, go for it. If you want long-term wheels, stay away.

I think I still have spokes for a 600 hub GL330 wheelset. (302mm or so comes to mind but I haven't measured em in ages) if someone's interested in trying em. They've been in a wheel for 3-ish years (see above) so they may/may not start breaking immediately. Buy me a 6-pack of beer and they're yours.

M


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## rruff (Feb 28, 2006)

What Ti spokes are you talking about?


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## cfoster (Dec 20, 2007)

I'm happy building MTB wheels with TI 2.0 (non-butted) spokes....lighter than Revs, and still feel awesome! NO issues with flex, blah....In fact, I think they feel even better, they feel super lively, which I tend to go for.

With road wheels, they're sort of a tough sell becuase of their expensive. Also due to their expense, the casual assumption is that for the money they should be butted AND aero. 

While road rims may be as equally capable of building with a decent amount of tension as MTB rims, spoke tension for TI spokes is critical. It's a challenge to use TI + super light weight road rims, you Have to know exactly where the line is. Good luck... If you don't know where that is, you either run into rim cracking issues and/or broken spokes. On top of that, it's fashionable right now to build wheels with low(er) spoke counts, which might have the effect of making a wheel feel flimsy anyway, (variable based on component selection).

Light weight road rim + low spoke count + TI spokes = not a good idea for anything but a road race day set. For MTB, no problems. For Road, 28H or 32H, with a regular double wall/decent rim, TI 2.0 no problems. For road wheels with TI aero bladed spokes, your rim selection is going to be key.


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## nightfend (Mar 15, 2009)

I have titanium bladed spokes on my HED 90 aero wheel from way back. For a time trial wheel, they function perfectly well. But I imagine that a CX-Ray would fill the same role, and add more durability.


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## BWWpat (Dec 17, 2009)

Zen Cyclery said:


> Unfortunately one wheelset too much. Built one wheelset with Extralite hubs and Edge 25 tubys via Pillar Xtras. We ended up rebuilding the wheel with Cxrays because the customer said they felt much softer than his EA90s.


What spoke count?
What was the spoke tension?


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## Drew Eckhardt (Nov 11, 2009)

aranesp said:


> Price aside, what are the pros and cons of Ti Spokes?


Pro: you can get a super cool rainbow anodized effect

Con: performance will be worse since aerodynamics are more important than a few grams of weight and that will be worse for spokes which fit into standard hubs because for a given strength they need to be thicker (you might get around that with very wide, thin spokes in proprietary wheels). They're more expensive than nice 2.0/1.5mm aerospokes (DT Aerolite, Sapim CX-Ray).

266mm DT Aerolites/Revolutions are about 4.44g / spoke; 266 and 264mm 14g DT Marwis average about 4.16g which is 18g more for a pair of 32/32 spoke wheels. That weight will make a 145 pound climber atop a 15 pound bike 0.02% slower up the steepest climbs allowing the chasing peleton to gain 0.9 seconds per hour on him when he's racing off the front to an up-hill finish. It's 12g by the time you get down to 20/24 spokes.

The few Watts saved by aerospokes will have a much more significant effect on flatter terrain.


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## rruff (Feb 28, 2006)

In case it wasn't obvious in my previous post, there is no technical/performance reason to use Ti unless you are going for the really light ones... like the Pillar Xtra... which are also ovalized and fit into any hub like CX-Rays. Why? Because *the stiffness to weight ratio of Ti is the same as stainless*. Actually *all* metals have about the same stiffness to weight ratio. If Sapim made a stainless spoke like the CX-Ray only with a cross sectional area 60% as high, it would have the same stiffness and weight as the Pillar Xtra. A straight gauge 2mm Ti spoke has about the same stiffness and weight as a CX-Ray or Laser... *and* it will not be as strong because it isn't butted. 

So... only consider Ti if you want spokes that are lighter and less stiff than any steel spoke on the market... and then get the Pillar Xtra.


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## needlotsofhelp (Aug 30, 2012)

stainless steel ftw.


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## MShaw (Jun 7, 2003)

rruff said:


> What Ti spokes are you talking about?


Me? Marwi/Union

M


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