Titici is not a name that springs to mind when you think of Italian cycle makers. But the company has been around since 1970, producing up to a million steel frames a year for brands like Bianchi.
Like other large bike producers based in Europe, Titici has had to adapt to the move of high volume bike manufacturing to Asia. So it’s paired up with the X-Bionic clothing brand, headquartered nearby, to launch its Italian made carbon bikes worldwide.
Its carbon framesets are totally bespoke – although you can also buy stock framesets at the same price – and made to measure based on a customer’s geometry and ride requirements.
Traditional rim brake road bike incorporates the Flexy top tube design
The hallmark of Titici’s frames is the patented ultra-skinny carbon top tube. It’s called this Flexy, as it’s designed to absorb both low frequency and high frequency road vibrations while also being wide so it keeps the frame’s lateral stiffness. The Flexy top tube is incorporated into a range of road, gravel and mountain bikes.
Titici’s frames are made in its Italian factory using tube-to-tube construction, so it can make them with any geometry the customer specifies, with a lead time from order quoted at 50 days or less. You can customise your paint job too.
Titici's range includes this gravel bike frameset
The drop bar bike range includes a rim brake and a disc brake model, the latter with thru-axles and flat mount brakes. There’s also a gravel bike with extra tyre clearance for 40mm or wider rubber.
Titici says that around 80% of its sales are of custom framesets. It’s got a 3D configurator app allowing you to see what your new bike will look like from all angles before placing your order.
Although it's thin vertically, Titici's top tube is wide enough to maintain frame rigidity
It’s also incorporated a scannable head tube badge – a bike industry first. Scan it with your mobile and you can register your bike using Titici’s app. Records of service visits can also be added to the bike’s history by bike shops. There’s a five year warranty for your new frame, with Titici keen to create a community of its owners.
Titici’s framesets come in at around £3800, with a complete build usually priced at between £6000 and £10,000. Quoted weight for a rim brake frameset is around 950g with a disc brake frame weighing about 1000g.
Titici bikes are currently available through the Velosport/X-Bionic Store in Putney, but Titici has plans to expand to a network of around a dozen stores in the UK. There’s a network of stores in other European markets, with launch in the US and Asia to follow.
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Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.
He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.
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