John Siegrist – Dean Titanium Bicycles

photos by: Jake Moore

Dean Titanium Bicycles is based out of Boulder, Colorado. They focus primarily on making titanium frames for road, mountain, and other bicycling disciplines. John Siegrist is the head of the operation performing all of the welding himself. We got a chance to meet up with John at the 2013 North American Bicycle Show to find out some more information about Dean and check out some of their mountain bikes on display.

Interview with John Siegrist – Dean Cycles

What type of mountain bikes to you typically build for your customers?

“We mainly build cross country mountain bikes.”

Duke titanium full suspension model

Rohloff belt drive detail

rear sliding drop out detail

What type of material do you most often use for construction?

“We do build some steel but mostly titanium frames. We use all USA made tubing, USA made fitings. Typically 3/2.5 titanium. The frames are built using a two pass welding process. First the “root” weld is made and then a finishing cap pass is made with 6/4 titanium rod.”

shock allows for about 2″ of rear travel

the suspension pivots at the bottom bracket which allows the use of belt drive very easily

Do you have stock geometry or are most frames custom?

“For mountain bikes we are are 50/50 stock sizing vs custom.”

headtube detail

Dean titanium seatpost

Dean titanium stem and titanium handlebar

Do you do wet paint or powdercoat?

“If we do paint  we use Powdercoat – Spectrum Powderworks.”

rigid Exogrid mountain bike

sick looking Exogrid rigid fork

Exogrid titanium/carbon tubing

How did you get started building bikes?

“I came to Colorado in 1981 to race. Worked with Bill Stevenson. Got into bike building through him. After got out of CU started building bikes and grew from there.”

headtube badge detail

one piece Dean titanium handlebar stem combo

cockpit detail

First sweet childhood bike?

“My first race bike built by Bill Stevenson.”

rear sliding dropout detail

belt drive detail

Favorite trail?

“Winter Park singletrack”

Dean titanium hardtail with Di2 drivetrain

Dean titanium handlebar and stem

SRAM or Shimano?

“Back and forth between the two.”

Shimano Di2 shifter

Di2 rear derailleur internal routing exit

internal routing exit for Di2 front derailleur

Burrito or taco?

“Burrito.”

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