Dean Bikes Shows Off Custom Made in America Titanium Gravel and Touring Bikes – 2018 Sea Otter

Dean Bikes has gone through some changes in recent years. Founder John Siegrist sold the company to Ari Leon but remained involved. Now Siegrist, Leon and others have formed the Janus Cycle Group, and the storied titanium brand is seeing more changes.

First, Dean also has more options and competition for customers with its new sister brand Merlin. Merlin will share a facility with Dean but have a separate team of builders and distinct models. Under Janus, the growing titanium family of brands aims to machine away a bigger slice of the titanium pie.

The company’s brief experiment of selling more affordable Asia-built models under the Dean name is over. While the nicely-built, price-point Antero cyclocross bike will continue on, it gets a price jump to $1,700 for a frame, as it’s now built in Boulder, Colorado. While the frame price goes up by almost $500, $1,700 for US-built titanium is still quite impressive when many U.S.-handbuilt steel and aluminum frames sell for much more.

Dean moved production of the Antero cyclocross bike to the U.S. and gave the frameset a cost bump to $1,700 . © Cyclocross Magazine

Dean also offers a Torrey's gravel frame, with more bells and whistles like rider-specific tubing and etched logos. The Torrey frames are available with custom geometry at no charge, but the stock geometry is the same as its Antero cyclocross bike—revealing how the company thinks about gravel-specific bikes.

While Siegrist and his team look to avoid diluting the Dean Bikes name, they are not walking away from Asian-built options. Those price point frames will be sold under a different name.

At Sea Otter 2018, the company had two titanium drop bar dirt bikes on display. One was a custom-built gravel bike that featured Paragon Machine Works sliding dropouts, under-the-top-tube cable routing, en ENVE carbon cyclocross fork, Dean titanium seat post and an Ultegra 1x drivetrain. The 54cm show bike happens to be available for sale.

Dean Bikes was showing off this custom gravel bike available for sale. The bike features sliding Paragon Machine Works dropouts and a titanium seat post. 2018 Sea Otter Classic cyclocross and gravel new products. © Cyclocross Magazine

The bike that really caught our eye was John Siegrist’s personal travel bike, a titanium mixed terrain killer with a mix of old technology and new technology. The bike featured titanium S&S Couplers, a carbon Wound Up fork, Paul Racer center pull brakes, Gates Carbon Drive belt drive and sliding Paragon Machine Works dropouts. Apparently when you start or own the company, you can easily build the bike of your own dreams, and make the rest of us dreamers jealous.

Dean founder John Siegrist's titanium travel bike combines new tech with old tech. Center pull calipers, Wound Up carbon fork and Gates belt drive with S&S titanium couplers. 2018 Sea Otter Classic cyclocross and gravel new products. © Cyclocross Magazine

See the photo gallery below for a closer look at the two Dean bikes on display at Sea Otter.

More info: deanbikes.com

See what’s new this year with our coverage of the 2018 Sea Otter trade show.

Photo Gallery: Dean Bikes Custom Titanium Gravel and Touring Bikes