Mark Hester of Prova Cycles is dabbling with titanium. Pictured is his first titanium bike, a Ripido Party Ti built for himself to test. "My previous steel bike is limited by the maximum downtime length that is commercially available. Whereas this, I start with long lengths of seamless tubing and then cut and externally butt for each frame, I was actually able to build this frame as I’d originally planned for the previous frame. It allows more design freedom, you can buy this tubing in lots of different diameters, and lots of different wall thicknesses. And then becuase I’m custom butting it, I can tune it to a particular frame," said Hester of his bike that features a very roomy 495mm reach (extremely long given he's of average height, at 174cm).