[music] Ollie: This bike is incredible. It's 3D-printed
out of titanium. Pretty much the whole frame is titanium. You've got titanium stem,
a titanium fork, titanium seatpost, and even the cranks are custom titanium. Now, it's absolutely
beautiful. It's got loads of innovative and interesting engineering design ideas in.
I can't wait to show you. [sound effect]
I'm going to tell you all about it and show you all the intricate nice details on the frame,
weigh it, and talk to Tom Sturdy who is the man behind it, the creator of this beautiful bike.
We're actually in his shed right now. First, let's begin with the poll. 3D-printed titanium bikes,
hot or not? You can click on the screen and be able to vote and let us know your thoughts.
Now, 3D-printed titanium, or additive manufacturing as it's also known, is
a rapidly growing area of tech. We've seen 3D-printed titanium components on bikes before.
I think most notably, on the cockpits of the Pinarello Bolide triathlon bikes, used by Team Sky
and INEOS. This is the first time I've seen a whole titanium bike with 3D-printed
components throughout. It's just incredible. Titanium has a number of advantages. It's a
very lightweight, very strong metal. There's also resistant to corrosion. It's slightly
heavier than carbon and it's more expensive than aluminum. Using traditional manufacturing methods,
titanium can also be harder to machine into complicated shapes. People love the way the
titanium bikes feel. Also, in theory, a titanium frame can last forever meaning that it's really
sustainable design. I'm a big fan of that. Sturdy has taken the material processes
used in making titanium components to the next level and applied it into this frame.
Before we get on to the 3D printing of the components, I'm just totally enamored by this
amazing fade that he's got going on on the frame there. It's just the really beautiful
anodized finish that just fades to the natural metallic silver of the titanium. It's very nice.
Good to see you, Tom. Thanks for inviting us down to your shed on this cold December day.
The big question I've got, and I'm sure many of the viewers will want to know, is just how
does a bike that's been built in this way
ride? How does it feel compared to a traditional titanium frame or even a carbon frame?
Tom Sturdy: Obviously, it's something that's difficult to put numbers on
for the famous ride quality, but that's the core of what I do really, is optimizing that particular
characteristic. Titanium's, famously, a very smooth material to ride. The bikes do have a very
smooth ride quality compared to a carbon frame. That's often what people
would pick up on, is that you don't get the vibrating or the jarring through the frame.
The structure works, actually, in quite a similar way to a molded monocoque composite structure.
It's really efficient. Even though you've got that smoothness, it's not a penalty in
terms of efficiency. The bikes, they're really responsive but it keeps a lot of
the subtleties that titanium is famous for. Ollie: 3D printing allows you to make much
more complicated and intricate shapes than traditional manufacturing methods
but still retain structural properties and strength in those components. What we have here
is a lugged construction. The head tube and this seat tube junction here, and the bottom bracket,
and also where the dropouts go are all lugs that then titanium tubes are welded into.
I've got some here. This is a bottom bracket section that's been 3D-printed. You can see.
This is a head tube here. When they come out of the 3D-printing, these components,
actually, have quite a rough surface finish onto them, and then they can be customized to
what the individual customer wants from the finish of their bike. There's, actually, a cool machine,
it's just there, called a tumbler which replicates how pebbles on a beach get smoothed out over time
but it does it much more quickly, and then you can get a really smooth finish on these components.
Just by being able to hold them, you can see how intricate they are. These are really non-uniform,
complicated shapes that just wouldn't be possible to be made out of titanium without
this technology. There are some really nice details like this integrated seat post bolt
on this lug here. It's just nice and hidden and tucked away on the other side. It's very neat.
The part that I think really showcases what can be achieved with 3D printing titanium is the stem
because it's an incredibly complicated, non-uniform shape, and I just love the way
it flows seamlessly in this continuous line into the head tube. It's very neat, but also,
the cables are fully integrated in it. This highlights the complicated shapes that
you can create using this technique that previously, were only achievable through
using composite materials such as carbon fiber. The result is stunning. Isn't it?
Another thing that people will be wondering is that, with 3D printing and stuff, people
who buy a 3D printer at home now from Amazon or whatever, that you often print things out
of basic plastics and they're quite brittle. The material strength, how strong are these 3D printed
titanium lugs that are used in the construction? Tom: A really important part of building any bike
is to make sure you understand the material you're working with. It is different. The 3D printed
titanium will perform in a different way to machined titanium or even the drawn tubes,
so it's really important to understand what the limits are
in terms of ultimate strength and its fatigue life, that sort of thing.
It's challenging because that data doesn't exist publicly certainly,
although 3D printing is used increasingly and by certain sectors has been used for a long time,
it's very expensive, so the people who do do it keep that information to themselves because
it's very expensive to get hold of. I had to get hold of it myself, so
as part of designing and building bikes in this way there's a huge amount of testing that goes
into it. I'll print small little test pieces all the way up to complete components and put them
through various rounds of structural testing so that I know what the limits are of the material
in particular ways. It can be surprisingly sensitive. It can be influenced by the specific
printing process, what machine it's printed on, how that might be heat-treated or not afterwards.
Even the surface finish can affect it. There's a difference between a polished lug and a raw lug in
terms of how they might perform over time. Ollie: Having a titanium fork, this is the
first time I've seen a titanium fork, it's pretty unusual. Normally, when you have a titanium bike,
people will put a carbon fork in. How does that change things? How does that feel?
Tom: I started making forks with all the components
to give me full design control over anything that I might want to change on the bike. It gives me
complete freedom over things like tire clearance, fork geometry, how that affects the handling,
whether or not it has eyelets, what brake mount it has. All of those things can often create a
compromise from a design point of view. When I started looking into it,
I wanted to control those things but also see what I can do to improve
the overall package in terms of how well I can optimize it. In terms of it being 3D printed,
that was important because it's actually quite a complex structure. The stresses that go through
a fork are quite complicated, and 3D printing allows me to change the wall
thickness throughout the whole fork in order to respond to those stresses. It's one of the
most complicated structures on the bike. You can change the stiffness of it in
a lot of different ways in terms of how much it can flex backwards and forwards,
twisting as well and side to side. To a certain extent, the difference isn't night and day
because all forks have to do a similar job. They all have to withstand the same loads
because they're all used in a similar application.
It's not like it's twice as flexible or twice as stiff as something, they're all
fairly close when you start looking at things. Again, you do get the benefits that are
inherent to titanium as well. It is a surprisingly comfortable fork to ride without it feeling overly
flexible or without losing that responsiveness. Ollie: The cranks also fall into that. The cranks
are incredibly fully 3D printed titanium but again, the stiffness of the crank can be changed.
Tom says that he does actually stronger cranks for mountain bike applications. At present,
the lugs are all 3D printed but the tubes are drawn titanium tubes that then Tom buys and
cuts to the desired length and also manipulates the shape of them to tune the characteristics
of what he wants. This is most evident on the chainstays down here which you can see have been
heavily ovalized from a round tube just to make it stronger in that particular area of the frame.
One of the big advantages of composite frames has been that in addition to being very light,
what you can do is really customize the shape of it and make incredibly intricated shapes which
is huge in bicycle design because it means you can create very aerodynamic shapes. That's why we've
seen the rise of the aero bike as a consequence of more carbon fiber being used to make bicycles.
With 3D printing and additive manufacturing, as is demonstrated here, it really does open up those
possibilities of really complicated aero shapes. The idea of having a titanium
aero bike becomes a reality. It's something that we can do in the future.
On to the building components on this particular bike. Being a custom bike, Tom has customized this
one to be more suited to all-round road riding and also, in theory, all year use. We've got some full
eyelets on here for mudguards. You can see little eyelets at the back and then this very nice,
little bolt here that's tucked in away for full guards to be fitted on there. It's a nice anodized
color on it as well which coordinates perfectly with the anodizing on the rest of the frame.
There's just loads of nice touches along that line as well. You've got a bit of anodizing on the
titanium bottle cages here and then the lock ring cap on the chainset there, on the cranks
as well. It's just very classy, isn't it? I'm just a big fan of that. You've got a C-Bear bottom
bracket in there, I've just noticed as well. The drivetrain on the bike is SRAM Red AXS on
the rear mech, and we're taking advantage of the fact that that can be run as a 1x system with this
inbuilt clutch. You've got a single chainring at the front that just creates a very nice,
clean and simple look to the bike. I'm a fan of that. We've got 12-speed at the back and
hydraulic disk brakes front and rear, 140, 160. We've got a carbon bodied altitude saddle on
the top there which Tom assures me is actually comfortable. Then we've got the bars and the wheel
rims there from Beast. Out front in the cockpit area, there's a custom, obviously, 3D printed
titanium mount that comes out the front which has integrated a light into it as well. Very nice.
How much does it weigh? Let's have a look. That's just come out at 7.6 with the light on it, bottle
cages and power meter pedals, which is seriously impressive for a full build, and especially when
it's got winter tires on it as well. You could quite conceivably shave a couple of 100 grams
off with some summer tires. To put that into context, Tom tells me that this frame weighs
1.2 kilograms which is really impressive for a titanium frame because for an equivalent size,
normally, you'll be looking at about 1,400 to 1,500 grams for a titanium frame that was made
in a traditional method. Wow. That's proper cool. I appreciate that you're a one-man-band and an
incredible amount of work goes into a fantastic bike like this, but what's the damage? How much
does a 3D printed titanium bike like this cost? Tom: Everything is custom so inevitable
the bottom line does vary from one build to another, but most customers are spending
around the £10,000 to £12,000 mark. Ollie: I thought it was going to be
more than that, to be honest. Tom: [unintelligible 00:14:17] welcome
to be more. [laughter]
Ollie: Wow. Thanks so much for sharing your latest creation. It is absolutely fantastic. I look
forward to what you come up with next. Tom: Thank you so much.
[music] Ollie:
I hope you've enjoyed this look of this stunning and really quite interesting bike. Let us know in
the comment section below if you think this is the future of titanium and bikes and if we'll see more
like this. I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on it so fire them down in the comments. If you've
liked this video and looking at this bike please give it a thumbs-up, and help support the channel
and the video. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. [00:15:05] [END OF AUDIO]