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Triton Bikes. Titanium frames handmade in Russia. Anyone? :)

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#1 · (Edited)
Triton Bikes. Titanium frames handmade in Russia (see last pages for the latest news)

Hello everybody!

My name is Dmitry I am from Moscow, Russia.
I run my small custom titanium frame business called Triton Bikes and would like to share a few photos of our products with you.

Since I have always been mostly a trials rider and I know this scene through all my life, the frames we had built were trials-specific. I was a student and Triton Bikes was half-hobby half-business to me.

I dropped this business in 2007 because I was taking a Master's degree in Italy in France and could not control the production. Still people wrote me and asked to build them a frame. But I could not.
Then I worked for a European investment bank. But the crisis hit and I was kinda fed up with the office work, so I decided to give Triton another try :)

So here I am back with my tiny business.

Apart from biketrials frames we now offer all types of unicycle frames, from 20" to 36". Our 20" trials uni is only 520 grams and we are very proud of it :)
Our unis are now being ridden in the US, Canada, Australia, New-Zealand, UK, Germany, etc.

We have now made quite a few titanium XC frames. And they are a success among the riders. And since I am now an XC rider too, this direction is very interesting to me personally.

We can basically build a frame of any geometry. We are quite limited on tube bending since titanium is no game. But any frame is available (XC, road, fixie, etc). The weight of an XC frame varies between 1580-1800 gr. Our frames are not for weight-weenies. But they are strong and reliable. And most of them are still obused after many years.

There's no proper website yet, but it will be introduced shortly.

Please have a look at some of the frames and bikes.

I will be glad to answer your questions. Hope the administration of MTBR.com is not against this thread.



















 
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#43 ·
Yogii said:
Tell us more about the tubes, are they butted? Is the flat stock the same grade? Can you show any pictures of the actual welding environment?

For names I like: Czar(Tzar) Cycles, The Big Red One
Czar bikes already exist. And they are Chinese trials frames and components.

Guys, I have registered this thing as Triton Bikes ages ago and everybody knows me here as Triton Bikes. I hope the name will spread :)
I am not looking for any other names and I don't want to go too Soviet Union since this production may move to Europe one day.
We are now more into developing the line of production frames and components, rather than playing with the names :)

I will be adding fabrication shots on the site too.

All the frames pictured are of the same Ti grade. We will be offering Reynolds Ti versions soon.
Two of my bikes are made of the Russian Ti and I have been obusing them for years.

 
#232 ·
Bar-stem combo.
Extremely light. 236 grams for 540mm wide handlebar.

No extreme use/heavy rider.
XC/Commuting only.

Nice work on the bar stem combo Dmitry:thumbsup:. Are the stem clamps threaded, or is it for use with a nut and bolt combination?

Also, hypothetically, would you consider using a similar design in combination with an ebb, so split shell, as opposed to pinch bolt, like the one on Seatboy's OS Bikes Blackbuck below?

 
#427 ·
Hi everybody,

We have had some bad time with the tubes not being delivered on time by our suppliers. Many frames have been delayed and some customers haven't been very happy about it.
Money back is always a solution if a customer does not want to wait anymore.
Anyway, the tubing is coming and production is getting back to normal state.

Meanwhile we have been building frames that have oversized tubing that we still had available.
One of them is was this Triton Urban/AM frame designed to work with long travel fork.

The top tube is oversized 35mm, the downtube is 44mm.
This made the frame a little bit heavier than a standard solution.
It also has ISCG05 mounts and has been hand brushed into a shiny state.
Small Triton decals were applied.

The customer is from Moscow, Russia. So delivery was a quick drive in the evening :)

Dmitry





 
#432 ·
Bead Blasting

Dmitry, is there any improvement on the structural integrity of the frame if it goes under bead blasting? Independent Fabrication claims that their "shot-peening" process actually stress relieves the frame, making it stronger overall. Does your bead blasting do the same?

Also, when you bright brush your frames, do they undergo bead blasting on the weld spots first to remove the oxides / burn marks? Or is it just straight to Scotchbrite brushing after welding?
 
#548 ·
Here is some media of work in progress :)

Remember that lady bike I was designing?



It's finally being built. The customer is from Russia



Also we are building a nice titanium fixed gear frame for a Finnish customer



It has a belt drive option.
At some point I made a mistake converting imperial to metric system and ordered smaller split system that was needed. But my customer decided to have it like that.





Canadian 24" frameset almost finished



One more light 29er frame for Philippines being finalized



Paragon wright flanged dropouts



Nice hourglass rack mounts on a 29er frame



Monsterous 29er frame ready for hand brushing



5 year old kiddie bike has been finished today.
Here are the 100mm long cranks. Shortened from 175mm with lathe/mill.

 
#551 ·
Ready?

The show time!

This week has been a VERY BUSY one...
Sorry, somebody haven't got their messages replied. But we were completely busy building this unusual bike.

It's called Triton Gordey.
Gordey is the name of a lucky 5 year old chap whose dad hated those heavy mass produced kids bikes and ordered him a light and functional bike.
This has been an exam for us.
We have never done anything like this. We took all his measurements, worked them out in BikeCAD Pro, did Solid Works and AutoCAD designs.

This has been the initial 3D.
Later on we decided to go for a straight blade fork



Once the frame and fork drawings had been finalized, the production began.
Meanwhile, my dad and I spent quite an amount of time on actually finding proper parts for the ride.
Some of the parts you see may seem a bit inappropriate. But please keep in mind that we are in Russia and some parts just never reach our shops. We were also very limited in time and thus unable to order parts from outside of Russia. Plus our post and customs are not very reliable sometimes. You cannot risk parts that are worth hundreds of dollars...

I have just taken a few photos before this bike went to Turkey with its young Russian rider

So here we go:



Triton Gordey 20"
Bike weight 7.4 kg
Frame weight only 816 gr
Fork weight 404 gr
Ti handlebar 130 gr
We used very thin walled tubing for the frame. And it was pain to weld..

The hubs and brakes are Hope.
Shimano XT shifting + Ultegra cassette. Will order short cage derailleur later on. None available here :(
We had to modify an old school 5-arm 175mm crankset. Used lathe and a mill to shorten it to 100mm. Used FSA Ti bottom bracket.
Pedals are Xpedo Ti axle.



ODI grips and Truvativ stem. Will have to order a stem from Chainreaction. Haven't found anything light and short at the same time in the local shops



Tried out my dad's idea to mount cables.
There is a rubber padding to save the housings.
Uses an M3 bolt to hold.



My dad and I. He also didn't sleep long this night :)



It is light







We used KHS Mac 1.5 tires that are the lightest BMX tires available in Russia.
The rims are DOB Magnesium trials drilled rims. 330 gr each. Also lightest available here.
Of course Hope skewers.









Now I have 5 minutes to rest in the sun. And then finally shave :)

 
#582 ·
Sometimes it happens that a custom builder gets swamped with orders and waiting times become long. Usually, that is manageable, as long as the customers always have a realistic idea of the sitiuation. Some one man shops have got into difficulties when the one man hasn't had time for both building the frames and communicating with the customers. The voice of an unhappy customer tends to be louder than the voice of a happy one.
 
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#581 ·
Usually I don't feel like getting into this sort of discussion, but there has to be a bit of common sense in this now.

You have ordered a custom part from a small custom manufacturer, whom is about 1/3 of the price you would get a similar custom part for.

In small custom enterprises, there are really just two business models:

1) like Triton has done it, meaning that the cost is kept at a bare minimum, and the production capacity is kept low enough to not have any lack of orders. The customer service is taken care of by the shop guys, meaning that spending a couple of hours a day replying to emails and such, is just not part of the business model, and is kept at a bare minimum, as there simply is no overhead in the income, to facilitate chit-chat and daily updates for each individual product.

2) Charge 3 times of what Triton does, allow the production capacity to be quite a bit higher than needed, set aside a couple of hours a day for customer chit-chat, and generally let the few customers you take pay for all the chit-chat and idle production time.

It sounds like some here thought they could pay for option #1 and have the benefits of option # 2, which ought to be obvious to not be an option.

Think it over before making complaints, and in particular complaints in public.
As far as I can tell, for the type of business model, Triton offers very fine service, and stands behind their product with no exemption.


Magura :)
 
#585 ·
Usually I don't feel like getting into this sort of discussion, but there has to be a bit of common sense in this now.

You have ordered a custom part from a small custom manufacturer, whom is about 1/3 of the price you would get a similar custom part for.

In small custom enterprises, there are really just two business models:

1) like Triton has done it, meaning that the cost is kept at a bare minimum, and the production capacity is kept low enough to not have any lack of orders. The customer service is taken care of by the shop guys, meaning that spending a couple of hours a day replying to emails and such, is just not part of the business model, and is kept at a bare minimum, as there simply is no overhead in the income, to facilitate chit-chat and daily updates for each individual product.

2) Charge 3 times of what Triton does, allow the production capacity to be quite a bit higher than needed, set aside a couple of hours a day for customer chit-chat, and generally let the few customers you take pay for all the chit-chat and idle production time.

It sounds like some here thought they could pay for option #1 and have the benefits of option # 2, which ought to be obvious to not be an option.

Think it over before making complaints, and in particular complaints in public.
As far as I can tell, for the type of business model, Triton offers very fine service, and stands behind their product with no exemption.

Magura :)
I obviously have a number of issues to be solved at the current level of Triton.
Unhappy customer = I am ruined. I really feel bad when I read some bad stuff. Friends tell me to take less care. The good part is that unhappy customer turns into a happy one once he or she gets the frame and rides it. This brings me back to life and makes the whole thing an enjoyable work.

What you say is quite fair.

Basically, the initial setup worked out when there was a limited number of orders so I had enough time for chit-chats + quality control + finish control + shipping + sorting out money + posting here and blogging the website + etc etc. Now the number of orders is growing, which is good. At the same time it means I have to spend more time on chit-chats. Customer relations plus production plus setting up new shop + family (but I try not to mention that) takes all the time that I don't sleep. I love this non-stop action. But the downside is that there is a queue and I can't have like 10 frames built at a time. I initiate them one after another.

The solution is either stopping taking orders for the time we have sorted the queue out (looser solution?) or hiring more people thus increasing the frames prices.
I am trying to do the second while maintaining the the current pricing by setting up a new shop.
Still, the price is likely to go up in the future.

Btw, the fact that the frame is ordered/deposited earlier than the other, does not mean it will be built first. Reasons:
- customers do change their minds in geo/specs often, re-designing the frame and making new drawings takes time. Sometimes we change little parts while the frame is already being built. I can't say no, but saying yes means extra time. Some frames are sorted within the first couple of emails. These frames come out quicker.
- some frames need certain materials that are not in stock. For example when we ran out of standard downtubes, we switched to building frames designed with oversize downtubes.
- some frames require total jig reassembly. In that case we would first build a couple of "normal" frames and then reassemble the jig for a couple of other frames that require jig reassembly (trials for example). This saves total time.

Dmitry
 
#591 ·
I've built a few bikes, and I always include at a least a few 'microbrew' parts. Nothing beats contacting and discusing details of a part, when working with such small outfits. But I've often had month long delays on simple parts, due to the one man, of a 'one man shop' being otherwise disposed for a month. Its all part of it if you ask me.

Keep up the good work.
 
#621 ·
This bike is something special!!! 8 Hour race went great! I won the single speed class by doing 12.5 miles more than anyone else, and took 2nd overall(geared and non) with 85 miles (7 Laps) in 7h25m!!! The rigid fork was great, and I wouldn't change a thing if I had it to do over! That was the longest ride I've had on the Triton so far and can say that titanium truly is a special ride!
 
#687 ·
To those that have ordered and are still waiting, please be a bit more patient. We ordered 3 frames and it took 7 months from the initial down payment to delivery. A bit longer than what we would've liked but Man, the frames are awesome! Worth the wait. Here are some crappy pictures I took. It's been raining quite heavily the past days and I don't want to muddy it up. ;)





 
#700 ·
Here is some more media. Now proper camera.

Completed smooth 26" street-trials frame, V-brake mounts only, vertical flanged dropouts.
This one will stay in Russia







This will be a 26" AM frame



29er/hybrid/belt drive compatible







Built up a nice 26" XC/all round bike for a local customer



Carbon fiber vinyl decals



Almost finished the lady 26" frame with smoothly bent top tube.
Will check the weight but should be around 1420 grams.



Topeak DeFenders

 
#852 ·
Hi everybody!

I am driving to Finland in a couple of hours. Gotta stamp my visa and return to Russia.
We shall leave the car on the Russian side and cycle to Finland and will ride there during weekend and then come back to Moscow.

If there's anyone living near Imatra or Lapeenranta and want to join us a for a drink - let me know. Unfortunately I won't have a Triton with me...because I don't have a touring Triton and this sucks. Those Tritons are expensive :)

I was going to take dad's, but then it would be a pain to cycle 100km on it :)

Anyway, here is some media I took with my wife's small Sony camera. Oh boy, I miss my nice big Canon and hope I can fix it soon.

We made a superlight rack.
It wasn't designed to take heavy stuff. And it's really light.
We will be making tooling and fixtures for racks. Until then I will not be accepting orders of racks.



Roadie and 28-29" hybrid frame with a rack



So a batch of stars arrived and our engineer designed simple tool that lets us match head badge with the headtube



Put it under press. Done.





29er frame being built for a Swiss customer



Fixed gear frame rear triangle mitered. Waiting for the drawing of rear part :)



Head badges!



Made new frame holder for alignment checks



Night at Triton Bikes ghetto shop :)



Installed oooold bench grinder made in 50s in USSR. Very quiet and powerful. Lathe operator loves it.



Here is a roadie frame we have just finished.
51cm Centre to Top.
Paragon dropouts with replaceable hanger.

The weight is quite nice - 1387 grams :)

LIGHT



Head badge mounted!
Though it's a nice evolution from blasted or vinyl badge, we are still searching for the best bolt solution. These bolts are 2mm "+", stainless steel. I was absolutely unable to find anything else of this tiny size here in Russia.
A crazy idea got to me just now: we should remove bolts from the old hard drives. They are nice torx bolts. Will test out this solution haha :)
We can virtually make alien bolts. But not so tiny :)



Light!









More to follow!

Thanks,

Dmitry
 
#922 ·
Friday night here.
Time for some Work in Progress media!

29 photos this time.

So we finished another tube bender. 80mm radius, for 19mm tubes.
This will be helpful for fatbikes' seat stays and light 29er frames' chainstays.

Bender being machine. The cutter is 19mm round shape.



Done! Installed on the Anvil Bikes Bending Rodriguez base



Smooth bending up to 90 degrees



Someone will notice his last name on the headtube. 29er frame in progress



5 front triangles mitered, seat tube inserts welded in
Waiting for the rear ends



The road bike waiting for some parts to be installed and set up



One of our upcoming frames is a 29er with bent seat tube and top tube. We used to bend before at an old shop but here at our new shop don't have a bender for large tubes. So we had to make one.

We bought a HUGE chuck of steel at the local port.
It is ugly, it's just raw steel. 60 KILO of steel. Heavy.

iPhone for size comparison



Our lathe operator Nikolay is machining holders to install that steel chuck on a lathe



Aligning the holder



Four people need to load that thing on a lathe. It looks like a wheel from Flinstones' cars :)



First cutting cycles



A few minutes later it starts to shine.
It's good steel and we plan to buy more of those

Huge bender story to be continued..



Sasha installed Paragon flanged DT Swiss 142x12mm dropouts on a dummy axle we made last week. I asked him to smile for MTBR :)



29er frame for a Polish customer in progress. It will take wide tires.





We machined simple centering tools to fasten the alignment process. We introduce new tooling and try to tune every aspect which results in quicker frames turnover with more precision.

Centering the chainstay mitering fixture with the milling machine



Chainstays ready to be mitered for BB shell



Centering seatstay mitering fixture with a vertical mile



Seat stays mitered!



Chainstays installed on a jig, attached to the front triangle



29er frame in a jig



29er frame tacked



Checked crankset clearance with the XT 3x10



Machined our own hourglass type rack mounts for a customer who bought Triton Valit 29er (see previous work in progress).
Which means we just sold our first standard frame and we plan to build more of those!



PostMount checked with the real brake. Enough space to weld on rack mounts.





More to follow next week!

Thanks,

Dmitry
 
#930 ·
Hi everybody!

Here is the new batch of photos that I took during construction.

We have had a set of precise seat tube reamers custom made for us at a tooling shop in Ukraine.





Triton Valit 29er
It got its customer within a couple days since I said it was for sale. The customer asked us to add fender and rack mounts. We did so.
Reaming with the new tools in action



Triton Valit 29er for our customer Dmitry is ready for shipment to Saint Petersburg.





The customer also requested us to make a suiting seat post. We shall design our own saddle clamp mechanism.
Meanwhile we are using traditional mechanism



31.6mm x 400mm





Heavy duty 29er frame for s customer from Czech Republic

Almost finished by now





You remember that large bender we were making?
Here are more photos of the process





Designed for 32mm tubes and has a tiny bit of extra space



Almost done!



Good news!
My dad finally left his previous job and joined Triton!
WOOOHOOO! I am so happy :)
It took us a bit of a time to train him.
He is now into mitering tubes on a mill, hand brushing, packing and shipping.
So Sasha has more time to weld. Which means we are getting faster!



A bit of candid camera :)







Reaming





29er frame checked and aligned



Seat tube inserts machined for 31.6 and 27.2mm posts.



Smooth



Made a bike hanger



Out of the plotter



We love it here



More to follow!

Thanks,

Dmitry
 
#1,033 ·
lol,it was an attack onn a crappy bike brand. one that went under because they couldn't keep up with the times. you're the guy trolling a forum slagging their bikes regarding their packaging in the most retarded way possible. i'd love to know who, besides the one company you know of who ships their bikes not in a box?

and without riding their fat bike and not knowing their tube wall thickness, your comments on their bikes flexiness is pure trolling as well. thanks for the neg rep too. that proves more than anything you're a d00sh

i stand by my comments that mountain cycles are one of the fugliest bikes known to man. that's my personal opinion on them and i didn't even troll their old forum to say so.

and since i haven't ridden their fat bike, i'll reserve calling it stiff or flexy. i'll wait till someone with ride time tries one.
 
#1,053 ·
The fatbike frame is mine. The rear end was tricky, as I wanted to fit the wider fat tyres (4.8") on 80mm wide rims. Something All the big fatbike manufactures had to take time to work out the best solution to. The current fat chainline doesnt give you much breathing space. Which is why 186mm hubs are on their way.

I think it looks amazing both asthetically, and technically. Cant wait to recieve it, build it up, and start riding it. I have a modified lefty for it. So it'll get near 100mm of front squish too.

If the geo looks odd. Thats because I'm only 5'7" :)
 
#1,093 ·
Hi guys!
Beautiful bikes!

I have a lot of media to share but last two weeks have been quite crazy.
I am taking a plane to SF in less than 10 hours.
I will have a stop in NY and if I find some Internet at JFK I will finally have some spare time to upload more photos.

Announcement: I will be at Sea Otter Classic with a friend/customer of mine with a special project.
Triton does not have a booth at Sea Otter as it has not been planned in advance.
But! If you order your Triton at Sea Otter, you will get an instant 10% discount!

Will be back with the media.

Thanks,

Dmitry
 
#1,112 ·
Scorp, unless its been over 7-8 months be patient. I know it sucks as the anticipation increases but custom frames take time. Mine took about 7 months but was well worth it. As most have posted, the end result is worth it and Triton frames are extremely well made and very durable. I have almost a year on my 29 frame and still impresses me every time I ride it.

In my experience Dmitry gets so involved in some of the business aspects that the big brands have multiple people doing that his time gets compromised resulting in delays. This is common in the custom world whether its bikes, surfboards, boats etc.

Unfortunately long wait is the price of a custom build but it's so sweet when it finally shows up at your door!
 
#1,117 ·
Yeah! I can vouch for Dmitry on this one! I too have been waiting for a frame, and Dmitry did state that the process would take a little longer as he moved facilities and started to do more in house production. He also offered me my money back up front but I also want a 24" Triton street Trials frame....Sooooooo at this point Im going to consider myself lucky to get one of the last few Trials frames to be produced by Triton and once It arrives there will be plenty of photos to share. Once the Bike is built up It will be used for Demos as a part of The Right Direction.org an action sports based youth development program that focuses on action sports to teach kids life skills!! Its a real sweet program and you can find out more here www.therightdirection.org
 
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