What Grade Titanium Do We Use In our Bikes?

This seemingly simple question is frequently raised by customers interested in purchasing titanium alloy or titanium alloy frames. It's often because people generally believe that Grade 5 titanium (6Al-4V) is a superior choice, while Grade 9 titanium (3Al-2.5V) is cheaper (and therefore performs worse).

However, this view is inaccurate; it actually stems from the perspective of custom frame manufacturers. In the custom frame industry, manufacturers typically use standard tubing provided by suppliers, thus limiting their choices to the type (grade and shape) of tubing available from the supplier.

The main advantage of Grade 5 titanium is its higher strength (higher tensile strength), allowing it to be used to manufacture thinner-walled tubing, thus slightly reducing the overall weight of the frame.

Let's compare two tubings of similar dimensions (e.g., a top tube): one made of Grade 5 titanium and the other of Grade 9 titanium.

In this example, both tubing are 700 mm long and 37.5 mm in diameter. Their two ends are joined together (i.e., the walls are thicker), and the middle part is thinner.

While Grade 5 Titanium does have a very slightly higher stiffness than Grade 9 (slightly higher Modulus of Elasticity), the difference is slight and the real difference in tube stiffness comes down to geometry much more so than titanium's modulus.

A tube's stiffness is determined by – not the tube's diameter and not even the square of the diameter – but by the cube of the diameter. This means that even a small increase in a tube's diameter will make a noticeable difference in its stiffness. Of course as tube diameter increases, weight also increases and you need to maintain a minimum wall thickness to avoid buckling failure.

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Grade 5 Titanium is best used in two configurations: the first is in billet form, and the second is in simple geometry tubes. We use Grade 5 for all of our CNC'd parts in our frames such as the dropouts, chainstay yoke, down tube cable access port, etc…

Simple tube design means tubes that are cylindrical in shape and have only minimal forming. Due to Grade 5's Titanium's limited cold working ability, it needs to keep its original shape and can only handle modest forming operations (minimal changes in wall thickness and perhaps a slight bi-ovaling of its outer shape). Aggressive tapering or bending are out of the question for Grade 5 Titanium as it will fracture during such forming operations.

The advantage of Grade 9 Titanium is that it can be cold worked a lot more than Grade 5 Titanium. This allows a much wider range of shapes that Grade 9 Titanium can be formed into, including aggressive butting and extensive shaping operations such as tapering, bending and forming operations.

One additional feature of Grade 9 Titanium is that its elongation is overall higher than Grade 5 Titanium's. This effectively means that Grade 9 is less brittle. This increase in toughness is beneficial if you expect your bike to crash or to handle the daily wear and tear expected of a gravel bike that's designed to do some off-road.

The age-old question of "What Grade Titanium is Better – Grade 5 or Grade 9" is
more complicated than simply one is stronger or better than the other. The reality is some weight savings can be gained by using Grade 5 Titanium main triangle tube sets, but this comes with a severe limitation of tube shape and durability. With a mix of each material in a frame, you can optimize stiffness, strength, durability and bridge the gap in weight between traditional cylindrical Grade 5 and Grade 9 titanium tubes.

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We are a specialized manufacturer engaged in the deep processing of titanium and titanium alloys, offering a full product range including titanium tubes, plates, bars, wires, and foils. Our facility is equipped with modern, dedicated production lines featuring heavy-duty reversing hot rolling mills for thick plates and multi-roll cold rolling mills for precision sheets and foils. Tube manufacturing utilizes precision cold pilger mills and seamless tube production lines, while bar and wire products are formed through high-speed bar/wire rolling mills and continuous drawing equipment. Critical processes are supported by vacuum annealing furnaces for precise heat treatment, and finishing is handled by CNC machining centers, laser cutting systems, and precision leveling machines. With a comprehensive quality control system overseeing the entire process from raw material to finished product, we are committed to providing high-performance, precision titanium solutions for industries such as aerospace, medical devices, chemical processing, and high-end consumer goods.

We implement industrial-grade protective standards, providing customized packaging solutions for each titanium product: tubes and bars are individually secured with anti-rust VCI lining within reinforced wooden crates; plates and foils are interleaved with anti-scratch PE film and packed in heavy-duty corrugated boxes; wires are precision-wound on industrial reels. All packages include desiccant and feature clear product labeling with traceability codes, ensuring that your precision titanium materials are protected from moisture, impact, and abrasion during storage and global logistics, arriving safely at your production line.

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