It’s not every day that you see the word “Titanium” in BMX, especially when it comes to BMX frames. Years ago, Eastern Bikes offered a Titanium Grim Reaper frame that retailed for over $1,000 and Terrible One dabbled with a Titanium Barcode frame before that. There was also a brand called RNC that made Titanium cranks, pegs, bars and more that eventually went out of business as the price of this type of metal skyrocketed. You can find Titanium spokes and bolts these days, but that’s about it for what is available. The price of Titanium has come down a little bit in recent years, but it’s still spendy! Even though it’s pricey, it turns out there has been some demand for another BMX frame made from the material because it looks like there are two options available. The crew at Eastern were showing off a Titanium frame that they are doing one off custom builds of at Interbike and it looks like Mike Laird over at Laird Frame has decided to give it a go, too. If you follow Mike on Instagram you probably have been checking out the photos he has been posting giving you the look at the progress of his first go at playing around with welding on Titanium. It looks like he has it dialed in and has decided to add Titanium frames to his custom frame options.
Like we mentioned above, the cost of Titanium has come down in recent years and pricing varies quite a bit. In short, it’s still a spendy material that is tricky to work with. But, some times people have a little more money to work with and this is why this frame exists.
As you might have noticed by the title, it looks like you can have a custom Titanium frame made by Laird frame starting at $1,965.00 with your choice of geometry, brakeless or welded on brakes and color. It sounds like Mike will be offering free powder coating if you for some reason want to cover up that clean Titanium look. Add in shipping and you’ll be over that $2,000 mark.
Like we mentioned above, each frame can be customized and it looks like he’s also doing 16″, 18″, 22″, 24″ and 26″ frames for those of you looking for something other than your standard 20″ version. Above and below you can find photos of the first two frames Mike has made from Titanium and it looks like the first one weighed in at 2lb. 14oz., which is quite a bit lighter than 4130 chromoly frames that are hovering around the 5 lb. mark these days.
If you are into this, you can take a look at ordering a frame on the Laird Frame website
A look at one of the first Laird Frame Titanium frames.
You can get welded gyro tabs. Unfortunately you cannot do removable brake mounts and guides on these frames.
This is the jig setup Mike’s using to weld these frames together.
Unlike the other Laird Frames, you can’t do a custom seat stay bridge since these bridges have to be cut using water and laser jets that another company is doing prior to receiving the tubing.
Some of the tubing laid out before it gets put together.
