The Titus Racer X is an industry legend, earning accolades and awards in seemingly every year of its existence. The Racer X has seemingly been annually recognized by Bicycling with its "Editor's Choice" award and MTBR.com as its pick for “Best Full Suspension Bike”. Despite their success, Titus continues to forge ahead, refining the frame to near perfection each year – it's this progressive approach that keeps both the Racer X frame and the Titus brand at the head of the class.

We evaluate cross-country bikes using two metrics: Pedal efficiency and frame weight. The Racer X excels in both categories. From an efficiency standpoint it sings thanks to its "fully active" Horst link suspension design. A critical distinction with the Racer X is the fact that Titus forgoes the all-too-common rocker approach to the Horst design. Many companies use a rocker to mate the rear triangle to the seat tube. Titus instead uses a strut-style Horst link design, replacing the traditional rockers with an ultralight three-piece carbon fiber X-Link, added in 2006. Since it uses the shock as part of the frame, this is perhaps the simplest "fully active" suspension design available. And the absence of rockers reduces the overall weight of the frame. Titus uses clevis-style dropouts with bushings at the Horst link to keep tolerances high and maintain stiffness in the rear. The union of the flex-free design, the fully active Horst Link, and a custom-valved 2007 Fox Float RP23 shock yields a frame that carves singletrack with a noticeable absence of the dreaded pedal-induced bob.

The carbon X-Link provides additional stiffness to the rear of the Racer X. It has a new swingarm featuring hydroformed, tapered tubes and a hollow boxed lower forging. And Titus maximizes lateral stiffness thanks to their use of four oversized cartridge bearings stacked at the main pivot and a triple butted hydroformed down tube. New carbon seatstays are lighter and more compliant than the aluminum version used in previous generations of the Racer X. All said and done, Titus Racer X now tips the scales at 5.25 pounds, all while enhancing the frame’s strength and ride quality.