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.

With a 29er, though, there’s no such splitting of hairs. It’s a whole new world, those bigger wheels — at least, that’s what they say.

To find out for sure, we went to the Titus Demo Day at Forest of Nisene Marks in Aptos (near Santa Cruz). Beautiful day, at least above ground level. At ground level, well… more to come.

Titus Rockstar 29er: Making the rider look good

The brightly bannered demo trailer was parked with a bevy of beauts behind the Epicenter Cycling store in Aptos. You had to feel for Titus. Rains have turned the region’s trails into seasonal creeks. Titus faced the double whammy of few riders showing up, and those that did trashing out brand new frames.

No one was around except Mike Wirth, in charge of the festivities. I had no trouble scoring a Rockstar 29er full-suss rig, with Manitou 4-inch travel up front and RP23 rear (the current spec calls for Fox up front as well). It was a medium, which made it slightly undersized for me. But with the long stem and bigger wheelbase I figured I wouldn’t be too cramped.

Mike slapped on some Eggbeater Acids, tweaked the shock and seatpost, and I was ready to go.

I love riding in Nisene Marks, but the previous week’s downpours, capped by a real wringer the night before, led Mike to caution me about trail condition. Above the steel bridge, he said, the rangers were issuing tickets. I figured OK, I wasn’t going to try anything too challenging anyway. My only regret is that I wanted to do some extended climbing on the 29er, and below the bridge there just ain’t any.

But there are plenty of risers and drops, and twists and roots and rocks. There’s even a makeshift teeter and some ledge launches. What the heck: I wasn’t going to do any of the upper gap jumps on a 29er anyway.

So I headed up the road and, at the first trail, sped up for the little 2-foot root-ledge drop-in to the left. Whee! Whoaa! Acckkkkkk! Bleaahhh! The trail below was a freakin’ lake! The bike handled great, but the splash and roll was something out of cable TV’s mud wrestling channel. Five minutes into the ride and I was already looking like a Jackson Pollack painting in brown and black.

For a good 50 feet beyond the trail was completely submerged. I didn’t know it then, but that’s as bad as it got. I rode through, rejoined the road and cycled up to the bridge. On the way I played around with seat height and suspension to get a good feel for the bike. I also looked for logs, rocks, berms and other things to test the handling.

Covers a lot of ground

What I noticed right off is how much more ground a 29er can cover. As a reformed roadie, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But you tend to attribute a road bike’s speed to the skinny tires and kind of forget about wheel diameter’s role.

Titus makes great bikes, but even so I was impressed by the Rockstar’s tight handling. They’ve obvious dialed the suspension and geometry to the point where, I have to say, the bike itself doesn’t feel that different from a standard 26er. The standover height is decidedly not an issue. You’re slightly aware of being higher off the ground, but I never experienced the tippiness or instability I expected. Instead the bike whipped nicely around turns and over obstacles and tracked straight through everything, even sloppy mud.

Then there were the steeps. Nisene Marks has some full-bore G-outs — big gullies you then have to climb out of. Going up, you realize the full advantage of 9er wheels. Step-ups, roots, rocks and other impediments that would require thrusts or churns to get over on 26es just disappeared. Going down, same thing. The sketchiness of rocks and roots, even drop-offs, was a no-brainer. I rode off some pretty good drops with no problem — the steeper angles of the 9er gave me plenty of cockpit control, and the Nevies (my tire of choice) held true.

Tight switchbacks were no sweat. Again, Titus has the geometry dialed: I really could tell no difference in hard angle turns from my 6-inch-travel Pivot Firebird.

Conventional wisdom is that 29ers benefit riders 6 feet and taller the most. I run slightly over 6 feet and can see the logic there. But I also see kids riding 9ers after high school and even up at Whistler (not on the extreme stuff, just tooling around), and they seem perfectly comfortable. It may be just a matter of orientation.

I will say this: I probably wouldn’t choose a 9er for freeriding. The higher BB and riding height make it slightly less desirable, although again, the Rockstar held lines mighty well. So far no one is making freeride and downhill models in the big hoops, although one version of the latter was shown at Interbike last fall. If 9ers make it into the long travel categories, I’d be up for another look. I’m not sure how bike makers will conform the bigger wheels to long-travel geometry and frame clearance, but am intrigued to see if someone tries.

As it stands, I can see big pluses to riding XC on a 29er full suspension. You cover more ground, you roll over anything a typical cross-country trail can throw at you, the steeps are no prob, you blow through swtichbacks. And you do it all with less work. Most of all, a 29er is a great excuse to buy another bike, and you know that can’t be bad.

Erik Orgell rode the Rockstar the day before and reviewed it as well.