Aerospace meets artisan: Inside the Sturdy Cycles workshop

Titanium bikes, for many of us, represent the ‘forever bike’. The nature of the material, in that it is impervious to the rust and corrosion that plagues steel and eventually aluminium too, means that, as long as you don’t do anything daft like cross thread a bottom bracket installation, the frame will almost certainly outlive you. Titanium bikes however tend to follow the same basic blueprint as steel bikes, with round (or round-ish) tubes, mitred to fit, and welded together into a frame. Forks, bars, and everything else you need to make the frame into a bicycle comes from aftermarket sources. 

Sturdy cycles is a little different, not only because a great deal of the frame itself is 3D printed from titanium, but also because so many of the constituent parts are made in-house too. I’d go so far as to say a Sturdy is the most complete custom bike you can get your hands on today as almost every part that can be made in-house is made in-house. If you’ve seen my peek behind the scenes at the Colnago factory you’ll have seen some 3D printed parts and a look at the factory where they are created, but this is orders of magnitude greater in terms of the utilisation of titanium.