{"id":18146,"date":"2026-03-11T10:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/?p=18146"},"modified":"2026-03-16T17:04:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:04:27","slug":"titanium-frame-design-history-revision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/titanium-frame-design-history-revision\/","title":{"rendered":"Titanium Frame Design History Revision"},"content":{"rendered":"

BikeRadar posted an article about titanium titled “Carbon fibre is cycling\u2019s wonder material, but titanium is having a renaissance \u2013 here’s why<\/a>.”\u00a0 It’s always good to see industry writing in support of titanium bikes.\u00a0 Thank you, BikeRadar.<\/p>\n

The article begins with a brief history of titanium framebuilding.\u00a0 A few readers told us Seven wasn’t included, and that’s fine.\u00a0 Generally, we’re not concerned about writers’ perceptions of titanium bike-building history and preferences.\u00a0 However, customers also contacted us about inaccuracies and requested our response.<\/p>\n

Given that Seven is the longest-running titanium builder without interruption, we’ve been involved in a number of titanium firsts.[1]\u00a0 Bike Radar mentions three important names that Seven’s founders were intimately involved with:<\/p>\n

Melin Metalworks<\/strong>:\u00a0 Seven’s four founders worked at Merlin Metalworks, starting with Rob Vandermark in 1987.\u00a0 The other founders are Jennifer Miller, Matt O’Keefe, and Lisa Rodier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Merlin Metalworks crew in 1988: Tim Delaney, Gwyn Jones, Rob Vandermark, Leni Fried, Mike Augspurger, Skip Brown, and Ross Andrews. Photographer: Matt O’Keefe. Rob and Matt are two of Seven’s four founders. Tim and Skip came on board with Seven soon after.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Raleigh<\/strong>:\u00a0 The titanium design that BikeRadar mentions (if he’s talking about the first titanium Raleighs)\u00a0 was machined and welded at Merlin by Seven’s founding team and the rest of the Merlin crew.\u00a0 These designs were also the world’s first titanium-carbon frames, beginning in 1989.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
John Tomac on his Merlin Metalworks welded Raleigh Signature carbon-titanium frame.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Greg LeMond<\/strong>: Seven’s founding team built the titanium frames for LeMond that BikeRadar mentions.\u00a0 Rob Vandermark designed the “Extralight” butted titanium tubesets that persuaded LeMond to buy<\/em> their team bikes from Merlin.\u00a0 That project began in 1990.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tim Delaney at Merlin Metalworks, welding Greg LeMond’s titanium frame. circa 1990. Other Seveneers were also involved, including Matt O’Keefe, Rob Vandermark, and Skip Brown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few other article corrections that some readers mentioned, but many people may not know about:<\/p>\n

“Later came Litespeed”<\/em><\/strong> refers to Merlin being first to build titanium frames.\u00a0 That’s not really accurate.\u00a0 Litespeed and Merlin both started building titanium-alloy frames in 1986.\u00a0 Litespeed built the first production road bikes, and Merlin built the first production mountain bikes.\u00a0 While at Fat City, Gary Helfrich built the first titanium-alloy road and mountain bike prototypes in 1984 and 1985.\u00a0 Helfrich was one of the three founders of Merlin Metalworks.\u00a0 His first prototypes were the beginnings of Merlin.<\/p>\n

“The Lynskey family started Merlin”<\/em> <\/strong>is most likely a simple typo.\u00a0 I’m sure the writer meant Litespeed, not Merlin.\u00a0 The Lynskeys founded Litespeed and later departed that company to start their own framebuilding business.\u00a0 They had a 5-year non-compete agreement that prohibited them from building frames for a while.<\/p>\n

“Remember the groundbreaking saddle from Fabric\u00a0that brought 3D-printed\u00a0titanium to the masses?”<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 That saddle never went past prototyping because it didn’t work.\u00a0 There were no “masses” involved.\u00a0 (More on this 3D printing trope later.)<\/p>\n

Thank you, BikeRadar, for writing about titanium.\u00a0 Sorry for the customer-driven corrections.<\/p>\n

\n

Footnote:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0Litespeed’s current owners were not involved in its origins in 1986.\u00a0 Rob Vandermark, however, has been building titanium frames without interruption since 1987.\u00a0 No other titanium framebuilder has been in continuous operation for longer than Vandermark.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    BikeRadar posted an article about titanium titled “Carbon fibre is cycling\u2019s wonder material, but titanium is having a renaissance \u2013 here’s why.”\u00a0 It’s always good to see industry writing in support of titanium bikes.\u00a0 Thank you, BikeRadar. The article begins with a brief history of titanium framebuilding.\u00a0 A few readers told us Seven wasn’t included, … Continue reading “Titanium Frame Design History Revision”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18171,"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18146\/revisions\/18171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sevencycles.com\/7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}