The Monkey Lab: Independent Fabrication Factory Lightweight Titanium Road Bike

01 December 2012

Independent Fabrication Factory Lightweight Titanium Road Bike

We recently posted a full-suspension fat bike; this week we're going the complete opposite direction with a lightweight road bike.......with derailleurs even. While we typically showcase Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14 builds on our blog, this Factory Lightweight Titanium road bike stands out as a fine example of the work that Independent Fabrication does as well as showing off some nice custom wheels. IF builds bikes out of steel (chromoly and stainless), titanium, carbon fiber, and a mix of carbon fiber and titanium. Everything is custom-built to order, and their quality and attention to detail is top notch. Their in-house paint department can handle all sorts of custom finish requests, including the orange-blue color block pattern used on this frame. We've enjoyed working with IF for many years providing tech support for their Rohloff frames as well as building wheels for their complete Rohloff bikes. We featured a Rohloff touring bike from IF back in April and currently have a steel belt drive Rohloff mountain bike frame in their build cue for another customer.

This tricked-out road bike was built for one of our local Rohloff customers in Berkeley, CA. The customer has a penchant for high-end titanium bikes, including his Rohloff-equipped mountain bike, but made an exception for this beautifully painted frame with carbon seat mast. Lots of high-end carbon parts are used in the build kit: Campy Super Record groupset, SRM power meter on SRAM carbon crank arms, and ENVE Composites handlebar and carbon rims. The ENVE rims are laced to Alchemy ELF and ORC hubs using Sapim CX-Ray spokes for what we think of as the ultimate all-around set of road wheels.

The Titanium Factory Lightweight frame uses a carbon fiber seat tube bonded into titanium lugs at the bottom bracket and top tube junctions. The rest of the frame is all titanium, including the lightweight drilled dropouts with "Independent" and "Fabrication" engravings. The carbon seat tube extends above the top tube to form a seat mast with an ENVE/IF-designed saddle clamp on top. A 44mm head tube allows the use of forks with tapered or straight steerer tubes, and a press-fit BB30 bottom bracket works with most modern cranksets through various adapters. All in all, a very modern road frame.