Titus bikes once were like a gift from heaven.

As we noted earlier, Titus had abruptly closed its doors after running out of money after a long descent into poor management, layoffs and lack of tech and marketing focus.

What remains of Titus will probably be picked over by Planet X for tech, patents and miscellaneous inventory.

We’re sorry to see Titus go but will always cherish our titanium HCR hardtail. A little steel wool to that baby and it looks brand new every time.

More from Bike Radar.

One of Titus’ most stalwart dealers, Roaring Mouse Cycles in San Francisco, heard about the liquidation via press release like the rest of us. A couple of other Titus shops contacted by Bike Intelligencer had not even been notified.

Our Titus HCR the day we bought it.

Foremost was forcing out Titus’ founder, Chris Cocalis, in 2006. Cocalis landed on his feet of course, founding Pivot Cycles. But his acumen, contacts and reputation were never something that Titus could replace. It’s impossible to say how many core and potential Titus customers Cocalis took with him, but a review of the MTBR.com forums revealed considerable name loyalty.

Post-Cocalis, Titus was left mainly to ride out its brand name without coming up with true innovation or a feel for where markets were headed. It dropped the SwitchBlade, its best-known (and most popular) bike ever, and was slow to adapt to the freeride revolution. The El Guapo had potential but took a couple of tries to get right. The same was true of Titus’ 29er full-suspension model, the Rockstar.

RIP Switchblade. Photo courtesy GalbraithMt.com.

“They tried to cover too many bases without really shining at any one thing,” noted a Seattle dealer, Adam Schaeffer of Downhill Zone. The road market never really latched onto Titus, and its focus stayed on too-light cross-country and racing bikes long after those markets were usurped by aggressive trail and freeride bikes, Schaeffer added.

Dealers said they will continue to support Titus as long as they can get parts. Sean Ramirez at Roaring Mouse said the hope is Titus will get purchased and supported by another company, but that may be wishful thinking in a down economy.

We have a Titus we purchased from Roaring Mouse nearly a decade ago but count ourselves lucky: It’s a titanium hardtail, built Cocalis-tough, and not likely to need attention. Owners of full-suspension models may face increasingly uphill battles getting replacement parts, and God help the Titus owner who breaks a rear triangle or tube butting.

More from Jimmy Mac at Mountain Bike Action.

Ibis Mojo HD, the MacBook of MTB

Ibis has responded to Bike Intelligencer’s query about why the new Mojo HD won’t come with a coil shock option. With any bike of nearly six and a half inches in rear travel, a lot of riders lean toward a coil for increased consistency, reliability, durability and tuneability. But Hans over at Ibis says coil’s advantages are waning with vastly improved air shock technology — e.g. the Fox RP23, stock on the HD. Here’s what Hans had to say when we pointed out that Brian Lopes, America’s winningest male mountain bike competitor ever, runs coil shocks on his Mojos:

“Brian has his own custom tuner and has shocks for different purposes so he runs shocks that are super firm, soft or lower his bike or whatever he feels is the hot set up for the course.

Most of the shortcomings of air shocks have been overcome in the last few years and if you want to make a lightweight frame or bike, they save a lot of weight. The spring curve is different than a coil, so the suspension on the HD is designed with that air spring curve in mind.”

Even as recent as a year ago I would’ve begged to differ with Hans. Virtually all the long travel trail bikes I’ve owned and ridden — Ventana, Turner, Intense, Santa Cruz, Specialized — have benefitted hugely from coil. So it’s something to think about when buying a bike, because replacing an OEM air shock with a coil after purchase can be a pricey proposition.

Now if air shocks only came in gold...

But here’s the deal. For the past year I’ve been riding a 6.5-inch Pivot Firebird all over the place, from Galbraith Mountain to Whistler to Leavenworth to Ashland to NorCal, including UC Santa Cruz and the Soquel Demo Forest. And I’ve been waiting for the slightest excuse to go coil, especially since the Cane Creek Double Barrel comes with a gold shaft that would match nicely the Firebird’s gold pivot and the Chris King gold bottom bracket. Bling! But drat it all, the stock shock, the same Fox RP23 that goes on the Mojo, has been just too rock solid to think about replacing. In fact, it’s been a set-it-and-forget-it thing with the RP23. (Now if Fox only made one with a gold shaft.)

Granted, Dave Weagle (the DW-Link inventor) was in on the Firebird’s design, along with the Man himself of course, Chris Cocalis. So you have to figure hand-in-glove relationship between the technology and the design. The Cane Creek has gotten raves on MTBR.com and elsewhere, but my experience is never change a winning game — or bike setup, for that matter.

Plus that same relationship with Weagle applies to Ibis and the Man himself, Scot Nicol. So no quarrel from me this time. I’ll look forward to not worrying about a shock upgrade with the new HD. (That white is the bomb btw!)

The Pivot Firebird really resets the landscape for long-travel trail bikes. For the first time you can go with a heavier bike, in the 32-lb. range, and benefit rather than suffer from the weight gain. To be clear, you may not benefit on an epic cross-country ride with steep climbs and smooth trails. You’ll still appreciate your lightweight, 5-inch bike for those rides.

But mountain biking is going through an evolution right now, where trail riding is increasingly a step-up from classic XC to aggressive skills tests. Every summer I head to British Columbia, where trails are etched into steep, rocky, rooty, obstacle-laden and structure-enhanced terrain with jumps, drops and hucks. B.C. is setting the international standard these days, which means its burly kind of riding is already trickling down the ranks to Cali, Colorado, Utah and other MTB haunts. When I spent a couple of months living in the Bay Area recently, I was amazed at the emergence of technical stuff on traditional trails, as well as an explosion in new trail building aimed at upping the X-factor. Many of these trails are off the radar, but the groms can’t wait for red tape and process. They want to ride now.

I’d be reluctant to take my 25-lb. Mojo on these routes. The Mojo is air only, has a 4-lb. carbon fork and 717 Mavic wheels. It’s set up for all-day mountain epics or simple low-country trail riding unencumbered by chutes ‘n ladders. I realize Brian Lopes rides a Mojo in downhill dual slalom events. But he’s got a coil shock, beefy wheels and other tweaks, and he doesn’t have to pay for his bike. Most of all, he’s Brian Lopes. And you know what? The rest of us are not.

So where you benefit with a step-up to the Firebird is in confidence. And confidence, these days, is a big factor in how fulfilled you feel riding a mountain bike. Maybe you can do small jumps but not doubles. Maybe you can do 3-foot drops but not 5-footers. Maybe tabletops intimidate you. To take that next step you need a bike that will do what you want it to do, will follow where you lead, and will bail you out when gravity gets the better of you.

And that’s where the Firebird enters in.

The love that dare not spoke its name

I’ve ridden 6-inch bikes since converting my Ventana Salt (El Saltamontes) to a 6-inch kit five years ago (we didn’t know about geometry so much back then). I had a Turner 6-Pack for a bit, then went to an Intense 6.6. All good bikes, all increasing my skillz. But this year I knew I wasn’t advancing with the trails, and needed something more.

I almost went for a Santa Cruz Nomad. But its suspension technology, the VPP, is the same as the Intense, and I was itching to try something different.

The Firebird caught my eye immediately for two reasons. First was the presence of Chris Cocalis, formerly the head guy at Titus. I bought a Titus ti HC hardtail from Roaring Mouse Cycles in San Francisco seven years ago (which also, no surprise, carries Pivot today) and it hasn’t missed a day from downtime. I still ride it almost every day for my around-town bike (modified only slightly for street use), and will take it on the trail where the ride warrants. It’s crashed many times and even got hit (nudged) by a car on my van’s rear rack one time. Didn’t even bend the chain stay. With the ti, of course, its finish looks brand new if you swab it up with a little steel wool.

Cocalis knows his stuff, takes pride in his work, builds bikes to last and stands behind his product. Since he founded Pivot I’ve been waiting for him to come out with something I wanted. When he hit the streets with the DW–Link, I sat up straight. The Mach 4 or 5 did not make sense because I already had the Ibis. The Firebird, though, made sense.

I should say something here about elevated expectations. Mountain Bike Action‘s RC (Richard Cunningham) doesn’t put his own name on many bike reviews, but he did it for the Firebird. His online posting was a 5-star gobsmacked rave. RC is usually pretty reserved in both praise and criticism, so his unabashed love letter to the Firebird was a marked departure. It did, however, goose the buzz meter on the Firebird.

By that time I knew I was going to Sea Otter this year, and that Pivot would have Firebirds available for test rides. Sure enough, they had a size Large available in the booth when I walked up. They set me up and told me to go play, I could take as much as two hours on the bike.

I headed for the test track and then the XC course to put the Firebird through its paces. And wow, was I shocked. The bike was just ordinary. It felt harsh, unbalanced and unresponsive. Going over the track jumps I was always too far forward or too far back. Climbing up the singletrack my front end wandered. I couldn’t figure this bike out!

At the Pivot tent we’d spent at least 5 minutes getting the suspension dialed for me…or at least I thought. Setting the rear shock (the Pivot comes with either RP23 or DHX 5) is crucial. You want 30 percent, or 3/4th of an inch, not significantly more even though you might be used to setting sag lower. Everything else seemed in order.

But out on the trail, the Firebird just wasn’t doing it for me. Hugely disappointed, I went back to the tent and thanked the guys, making mental plans to order a Nomad the next day.

As it turns out, luck was with me. My LBS, the Downhill Zone in Seattle, could not obtain a Nomad in the color I wanted. I was forced to wait. And it gave me time to think.

My test ride was so at odds with everything else I’d read and heard about the Firebird, and I trusted Cocalis’ judgment so much, that I figured I should give it a second chance. Because it was the beginning of the season, my worst-case scenario in getting a Firebird would be to use it for a few weeks, then sell it. I’ve done this before with high–end bikes. It’s like renting for a summer for a couple hundred dollars.

Fortunately, the second wave of Firebirds was just coming over on the boat from Taiwan. When I put in the order, I was just a few days from getting the bike.

Adam weighs my Firebird outside the Zone: 7.62 lbs

And here’s what happened. Adam at the DHZ set it up almost perfectly, nailing stem length, saddle position, bar width and on down the line. Adam knows me and my riding style and is a master at tailoring the ride to the rider. My riding weight with a pack is about Adam’s riding weight light, so he could dial the shock settings.

I took it out to Tiger Mountain, my favorite Seattle-area trail network, and thought in the parking lot that the shock, in my case the RP23, was a bit harsh. I fiddled with the air pressure, rebound and compression till the settings felt good. But Tiger starts out with a fairly steep fire road climb, and I was getting a bit too much depth on the travel ring. So I upped the air pressure just a hair…back to where Adam had it set in the first place!

Where the magic happens

At that point the DW-Link took over. For years the industry and media have talked about no-bob shock technology. For years we know what the truth has been. The DW-Link finally solves the bob prob (Weagle’s expression is “anti-squat”). Somehow on the Firebird it solves it even better than on the Mojo, although I’m not sure why that might be (the Firebird’s rear end may have more lateral stiffness).

Intriguingly, the harder you push the shock on a climb, the more the DW-Link kicks in. You can stand on the pedals and whale away without feeling any wallow or give. Particularly on a steep climb, with maybe a switchback or two thrown in, DW-Link saves the day. Your rear end just bites into the trail, even on loose stuff, and moves you forward as though you were riding asphalt. I know this sounds like reviewer hype, but trust me, I’ve been there. Even when you hit a rock or root going up, it doesn’t impede. The rear wheel rolls right over it almost unnoticeably. I’ve found it’s better to keep the rear wheel weighted, in fact — counter-intuitively so, where I’ve ridden before and always had to thrust my torso forward or stand or otherwise maneuver to get up over a rise or obstacle.

I admit to some trepidation at how well the Firebird climbed, because my experience is you get one or the other: A great climber or a great descender.

Once again, the Firebird blew away my expectations. Going downhill was like being a kid again, where your reflexes are firing and you’re totally sync’d with the bike and you think there’s nothing you cannot do. I did a couple of log rolls I’d always had trouble with so smoothly that I wished they were bigger and harder. I glided over a rooty boneyard like a bearing over glass. I banged down rocky creek channels and went airborne from ledges further than I’d ever done before. At the bottom I was sucking wind, not from wrestling with the bike but from pinning it to the max the entire way.

On the Firebird, 35 pounds (in my case; my setup could be lighter) just disappears beneath you. When you land, the suspension cushions you like you barely left the ground. In France they used to (and may still) have a car called the Citroen with air suspension. Landing with the Firebird is like shutting down the Citroen, where the air squooshes from the suspension, giving a float-down feel, like an elevator settling at the floor you want. Even on off-balance or fork-first landings there’s never a hint of fish-tailing or stutter-bumping. At least, there hasn’t been for me so far. I keep going bigger on the Firebird, though, without getting in over my head.

That first ride I had planned to go out for my usual two-hour spin. I wound up spending nearly five hours on the mountain. Each time I headed back to the van, I could not face putting my bike up. I had to do one more leg. Even at the end, I didn’t feel tired. I just ran out of daylight.

So I guess the moral of the tale is: The Firebird rules! Try to take a test ride, but remember, it may not be the best guide. Find a buddy with a Firebird you can try out; he’ll be able to help you get it dialed. Go to a Pivot Demo Day and talk it over with the bros.

I’m not going to say this is my one do-everything bike because I don’t believe in such a thing, or even want there to be such a thing (I like all my bikes).

OK…maybe I will say it. So far, I haven’t wanted to touch my Mojo again. Yeah, I guess I have to: If you want just one bike for all your riding, the Firebird is it. The ride does not lie.

Pivot Firebird notes:

Floating front derailleur. It really works. Front shifting snaps back and forth like an internal hub, there’s no chain lag, cable pause or brrrttt. I have tried every trick to throw the chain on a front shift. Does not happen. You also don’t get that little kak that most long-travel bikes give you when the suspension suddenly decompresses.

How big can it go? With proper transition and flow, the bike will handle most situations. But it’s not a big jump or huck bike, so use common sense. From a personal standpoint, I haven’t yet over-stretched the bike’s capacity. It’s the other way around, the bike keeps stretching me.

Go coil? I’ve used coil in all my bikes at this travel, but so far see no need with the Firebird (I haven’t touched the rear shock since that first ride). The RP23 is right on; word is that the DHX gives you more tuning options, but is trickier to dial for that reason. Pivot ships with DHX 5.0 air shocks (or RP23). If you go to coil, Pivot is devising an aluminum upper link (to replace the carbon) for better clearance.

Setup, weight: I’m at 34.5 lbs. with a coil fork (Lyrik U-turn), UST Mavic 823 rear rim (Mavic 521 front), Hadleys & Nevegal 2.35s, Chris King 1.5 headset, Thomson stem & post, Louise brakes, XT cranks, otherwise SRAM shifters and drivetrain. I could get the bike down to 32 pounds easy and am aiming at that. If lightness changes the handling, though, I’m going back to the heavier build!

Colors: Ano Black and “Root Beer” brown, which NOTE looks a lot better in person than photos.

Price: $2200 for frameset. High end of spectrum, but worth it.

Firebird Web page

Chris Cocalis gives the full Monty on the Firebird (video)

Cocalis discusses the DW-Link (video)