“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.”
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Found a different version of the prolly titanium story
The manufacturer was a southern California based aerospace firm named "Teledyne’. Teledyne was based in Gardena, CA, where they specialized in working with exotic metals like titanium which required special processes to fabricate frames. It is a little known rumor that the bike division was formed as a way of obtaining titanium during the cold war years of the early 1970s. Russia is where all the titanium was at and they were not about to send military grade titanium to the USA for them to make weapons with, but bicycles was another story. The US got the titanium and the bicycle part of the company promptly died but managed to win several races. Multiple national cycling champion Ron Skarin won a Red Zinger stage and the Tour of Sommerville twice on a Teledyne Titan and Pete Penseyers won the Race Across America (RAAM) on one. The history of the Teledyne would not be complete without mentioning Barry Harvey (a British cycling champion, who emigrated to Canada), who was the first to introduce his titanium frame technology to the cycling community at the US Grand Prix in 1972. Soon after this he worked out a deal with a California aerospace company to go into the bike frame manufacturing business. The Teledyne Titans were actually made from commercially pure titanium which is not as strong as the current 3/2.5 (aluminum/vanadium) alloy blend. The commercially pure metal was easier to work with than the harder alloys. In 1975, Teledyne was producing frames for the North Hollywood Wheelman team.
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“Why are we sending all this titanium to a US defense contractor?”
“That’s what I thought too but look again, it says ‘bicycle division’ so it must be fine”
Definitely believable
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i worked on a teledyne titan once. it was pretty cool.
It’s well known that the SR-71’s titanium material was Russian, sourced by the CIA through shell companies.
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Titanium is not remotely rare, but the Soviets just happened to have an extreme surplus of cheaply exploited high grade ore that made it easy for them to start using it industrially first
After submarines, they were also making shovels and helmets out of it for infantry troops, and stuff like plates / cups / cutlery decades before the ultralight backpacking boom
When looking at the resource consumption from different constraints, we look just as crazy making single use Aluminum Cans given the extreme energy requirements of refining it
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TAF, no question about it
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two questions:
That should be safe to drink from, yeah?
And…
Who wants to buy me that for my birthday?
real af
it would make an awful ashtray
Don’t go playing loosely-goosey with your soul like that.
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I bought two from them
worst case I’m sending some dollars to Odessa
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I just start singing about bumble bee tuna
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I am wholly uninitiated
Mostly posted because I thought you’d like
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