A BMXRacingHistory.com chapter · hosted on Legend Bike Co

Titan BMX

The Texas Titanium Brand That Moved to Oregon — 1982 to 1992

By Bill Ryan · Founder of Supercross BMX · 37+ years in BMX

We're telling this story the same way we told the JMC chapter and the SE Racing chapter: neutrally. No brand gets elevated. No rider gets shorted. Where the record is thin or contested, we say so.

The name, first

Titan was named for what it was built out of. The frame material was going to be titanium and the brand name followed. James Foreman, the high school-age son of co-founder Bert Foreman, came up with it in a study hall.

Where it started — San Antonio, 1982

Bert Foreman and Ken Burelson Sr. co-founded Titan in 1982 in San Antonio. The original factory team was small and young: Bert's son Jason Foreman, who was 14, and Ken's son Ken Burelson Jr., who was 8. Houston racer Jason Allison and, a couple of years on, Todd Mitchell came in after.

The early Titans were minis on purpose. The titanium on hand would not hold up to a heavier rider, and head tubes had a tendency to break — which is why production frames carried head-tube gussets as standard. Finishes were mostly raw. Paint and chrome did not bond to the titanium and a powder-coat attempt did not stick.

The 1984 Grands and the Furry connection

At the 1984 ABA Grand Nationals, Bert Foreman walked up to Colorado-based Bob Furry and his son Scott and asked if Scott would race a Titan. Bob spent the night stripping the JMC Andy Patterson Scott was riding and building the new Titan from the parts. Scott did not like how it rode. Father and son went home and the deal was off. A couple of months later Bert came back with geometry changes, met them at a pre-season race in Las Vegas, and the revised Titan rode the way Scott wanted.

1985 — the first full factory team and Scott Furry's title year

The first full Titan factory team came together at the Silver Dollar Nationals in Reno, Nevada in early 1985, where Scott Furry took 2nd in the 12 Cruiser main and Bert offered him a full factory ride. The team that year was Scott, Jason Allison, Ricky Pozzey, Jason Foreman, and the other riders Titan was supporting.

Scott raced every ABA national that season. He doubled (won both the 20-inch and the cruiser class at the same event) at seven nationals, won the Gold Cup, and in November was crowned ABA National No. 1 in 12 Cruiser, National No. 6 overall, and National No. 2 in 12 Expert.

1986 — sale to Bob Furry, move to Eugene

Around 1986 the founders had a falling out. Bob Furry bought the company in 1986 and, as the new owner of Titan Inc., moved his family and the operation to Eugene, Oregon.

Eugene is where the brand grew up. Bob kept the titanium program running, started sourcing 3Al/2.5V titanium tubing from Sandvik, and welded what is credited as one of the first single-piece-drawn 3/2.5 titanium BMX frames in the U.S.

1987 to 1989 — the 1/2 Trac and the first titanium mountain bike

In 1987 Titan built its first mountain bike: the 1/2 Trac, a dual elevated chain-stay frame in True Temper tubing. In 1989 Titan built its first titanium mountain bike frame. That put Titan into the wider American titanium-bicycle conversation alongside Merlin, Litespeed, and the other early Ti specialists.

The custom titanium tradition

In 1986 the brand built a frame for Michelle Gibson's 2-year-old brother — one of the smallest race frames Titan ever made. Around the same period Jared Krisiloff had a complete Titan under 6 pounds race-ready, valued at the time at over $15,000.

Darrell Young on Titan, 1988

Among the pros, the Titan name that connects directly to the JMC chapter is Darrell Young. Young was JMC's signature pro through July 1985, and after JMC closed he moved through a long series of teams. Per his Wikipedia sponsor record, Young joined Titan in early February 1988, and stayed on into the period leading up to his Oregon ELF deal in 1990. He is a 2003 ABA BMX Hall of Fame inductee.

The shared-shop chapter

For collectors: in the late 1980s a small group of titanium and chromoly BMX brands — Titan, ESP, Quikline, and others — shared welding labor in Southern California, with Jesse Cortez of Ultracraft Welding doing much of the work and Ken Burelson Sr. also welding for the group.

1991 to 1992 — the S.L. Liu merger and the close

In 1991 Titan merged with S.L. Liu's Bicycle Company. By 1992, over undisclosed disagreements about how the merged company should be run, Bob Furry resigned as President of Titan's Racing Division. Scott Furry took the role for a short stretch, but S.L. moved the entire operation to Yorba Linda, California, and Scott resigned at the end of 1992.

Where Titan stands today

An original Titan is one of the harder-to-find U.S. BMX titanium pieces in collecting today. The brand never came back.

Titan never had a JMC-sized factory team, never won an IBMXF World title, and never carried a signature pro frame the way JMC carried the Darrell Young Design or SE carried the PK Ripper. What it did was build small-rider race frames that won at the highest amateur level in 1985, weld some of the earliest 3/2.5 titanium BMX frames in the country, and put a Hall of Fame pro on the brand for at least one full season.

Sources

BMXmuseum.com Titan brand gallery and brand-history account contributed by the Foreman and Furry families. Wikipedia "Darrell Young" sponsor record. BMX Society community forum thread on the Titan/ESP/Quikline/Blacklite/Ultracraft connection. "TITANIUM in the 1980s" archive.

About this page. See also: The History of BMX, SE Racing, JMC Racing, Redline, Mongoose, GT, Haro, Torker, Schwinn, CW Racing, Webco, Hutch, Skyway, Diamond Back, Hoffman Bikes, S&M Bikes, CRD, TW BMX, Hyper Bikes, Hustler Bikes, Bottema Forks, Voris Dixon. Sanctions: BUMS, NBA, NBL, ABA, IBMXF, USA BMX.