Fair Wheel Bike’s Titus 29’er Di2

Another successful trip to Las Vegas!  This time the excuse was Interbike 2010.

I planned my trip so that I could also attend the Outdoor Dirt Demo.  After a few laps on the dirt I wanted to try something different.  So I walked up to the Trek Road bike demo and they handed me a Madone 5.2.  So I jumped on it and headed towards the road course.  I first tried to shift through the gears but the lever didn’t move, I thought to myself, huh?  Did they give me broken bike?  So I stopped and looked down at the drivetrain, and saw there were gears, it wasn’t a single speed, then I noticed it was Dura-ACE Di2 Electronic Shifters! SWEET!!!  It was awesome, the gears shifted perfectly and smoothly, I was thoroughly impressed, I want one!  If you’re wondering why I am talking about a road drivetrain on MtnBikeRiders.com keep reading, the topic will shift.

So the next day I meet up with the rest of the crew and we headed into the indoor show floor.  Walking into a trade show as big as InterBike can be very overwhelming, there are shiny new bikes and cool new parts all that are just screaming “look at me.”  At least for me it’s hard not to jump randomly from one cool thing to another.  Somehow I ended up looking at some Tune and KCNC hubs, bar ends, and skewers.  While checking out this little booth I noticed a very nice 29” Titus Ti frame with a Cannondale Lefty fork.  But after a few more glances, I noticed the same Dura-Ace Di2 derailleurs I experienced the day before, but on a mountain bike.  This sparked my interest and I started to inquire more about it.  It turns out that this was a “Titus Di2 Project 29er” that was a completely one-off, it has a programmable Di2 brain that takes shifting to the next level.  There are only 2 buttons for shifting both the front and rear gears.  The brain uses calculated gear inches to decide on the proper next gear.  The brain also removes duplicate gears and prevents cross chaining.  A feature that’s not even available on the Road Di2, is that if you hold down the button it will allow you to dump the gears in either direction.  To top all that off the Brain was enclosed in the stem and the battery unit was hidden in the seat tube. All this weighed in at around 16 lbs.  Here are some pics.