My steel fillet brazed Burls Designer select road bike built from Columbus mix. The bike was built for me by Justin Burls about 9 years ago and has been used regularly all year round for training and racing, and despite receiving little maintanence and some may say plenty of abuse has survived and performed beyond my expectations despite my weight when fully fit of 16 stone.
Despite it's age, it still feels as good as it did when it was new, If the current steel forks were replaced with a nice light pair of full carbon forks, and a mid level pair of race wheels, it would weigh in at around the 18 lbs mark, not bad for an old steel bike!
Having had the same bike for so long, I decided it was tme to try something different, and when Justin mentioned he was about to start offering hand built titanium bikes, I thought this was a good opportunity to try one. I figured that if a Burls titanium lasted as well as a Burls steel frame, which in theory it should last indefinitely, then I can't go far wrong. I have to admit I was doubtful as to how welll titanium rides, especially for a heavier relatively strong rider, I'd heard stories of some of the earlier titanium frames having very flexible bottom brackets and generally not riding well.
My shiny new Burls titanium road bike arrived about 4 weeks after I put in my order, fully built up with 2007 Campagnolo Centaur groupset, Neutron wheels and Reynolds ouzo pro forks with matching bars and stem. The thing I noticed immediately before even jumping on my new bike and riding it was despite being a very large frame and being fitted with only a mid range groupset, it felt surprisingly light, in fact it weighs in at not much over 17 lbs.
On riding the bike my concerns of the bottom bracket swinging from side to side on every pedal stroke were dispelled immediately, I tend to push very large gears, even on climbs, and so it came as a pleasant surprise to me that the effort from my pedal strokes went straight into moving the bike forwards as opposed to flexing the frame from side to side, and after a few miles it became apparent that my new bike is lighter, faster and stiffer than I could possibly have hoped!
Dick Wood
