Show notes
This week we sit down with Dave Rosen, founder and CEO of Sage Titanium. After connecting at the ENVE Custom Builder Round Up, we sat down to talk about the Titanium Storm King, its performance goals and the multiple finishes that adorned this show bike. This show was presented by ENVE. Sage Titanium Website / Instagram Join The Ridership Support the Podcast Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos): ENVESage Titanium [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton. [00:00:07] This week on the podcast, we've got Dave Rosen, CEO, and founder of Sage Bicycles out of Oregon. Dave. And I happened to meet at the ENVE builder Roundup, and this is one of five episodes related to the NV Roundup that happened at the end of June in Ogden, Utah. I have to reiterate. If you're known for the company, you keep. [00:00:29] ENVE is known for exceptional relationships. That room was filled with outstanding builders from all over the world that chose to spec their custom creations with ENVE components and parts, including their adventure fork stems bars. And of course their wonderful gravel wheels. If you haven't already followed ENVE on social media channels. [00:00:54] Definitely do. And I highly highly recommend you seeking out imagery from the grow Dio event. So many beautiful bikes, so many beautiful paint jobs really worth looking at and keeping on your calendar for next year. If you happen to have the opportunity to race the grody. Event. It was an amazing ride out of Ogden, Utah. [00:01:18] That really checked a lot of boxes for me. It was both technical and challenging and scenically. Beautiful. Definitely one to have on your gravel calendar for 2022. With all that said let's dive right in to my interview with Dave Rosen, from Sage bicycles. Dave, welcome to the show. [00:01:39] David Rosen (Sage): Thanks Craig. [00:01:40] Craig Dalton: Great to see you. After seeing you in Utah at the ENVE builder, Roundup, what a, what an event. It was. [00:01:46] David Rosen (Sage): It really was fantastic. I had such a good time. It was so much fun. [00:01:49] Just being able to reconnect with friends. Doing industry stuff. Again, it just, it was way too long. And to be able to, meet new customers and that kind of thing, it just, it was just, it was great. And then just riding bikes, it was all about bikes. Just everything we did from to the little short track event, it was a really good time. [00:02:08] Yeah. I thought it was [00:02:09] Craig Dalton: funny that some of the builders were actually taking the bikes they built and racing them or riding them in the grody event. [00:02:15] David Rosen (Sage): The next. Yeah that's what I did with mine. It was just, that's why I brought it. It was it's meant to be written. It's meant to be raced. [00:02:22] Although I really wouldn't classify my writing as racing so much as it was surviving at my own pace. So I can make it back in time for beer. There was a bit [00:02:31] Craig Dalton: of that survival strategy in my day as well, but it was a great reminder and seeing all these great builders that I've wanted to have more of these conversations and particularly excited to talk about Sage Titanic. [00:02:43] So why don't we just start off with learning a little bit more about what led you to start the company and when it was started? [00:02:50] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah, so I started the company officially on paper in 2012. My first inventory was produced in 2013. At the time the original intent with the brand was to actually make the frames overseas. [00:03:06] For that in the beginning with the idea of offering a lower cost price point, competitor to what was out there. I knew I wanted to do titanium. It was always about titanium. I've been in love with titanium as a frame material for ever since the eighties, when I would see, titanium, Italian bikes rolling around and, central park, New York city, which is where I'm originally from not central park, mind you, but New York city. [00:03:28] And for me, it was always about Thai, but in this instance, I thought, it might be good to do a price point. And what I realized is over the course of that first year is the quality suffered. And, the reality is you get what you pay for. And yeah, the pricing could be cheap, blah. [00:03:44] There's a reason why it's cheap. And so the quality of the bikes suffered, the stuff we put out was fine, but we had more failures than we had successes. And, we've taken care of all of our customers that have had issues. And then there are others. Never heard from him. Everything's fine. [00:03:59] Wasn't it. Dave, was there a particular [00:04:01] Craig Dalton: style of bike that you targeted at that time? It was a bit early, obviously for gravel in those days in 2012. [00:04:07] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah, we did actually a while we did have a road bike it was more about the cyclocross bike and we actually had a commuter bike that would be the precursor to the current gravity. [00:04:20] It was designed around larger tires. Not as massive as what you're seeing today and their geometry was more relaxed than a road bike, similar to a cross bike, but with a longer wheel base. So it really was very versatile and we actually marketed it more as a commuter bike both a drop bar and a flat bar version, basically the same frame, just different builds. [00:04:40] But it showed the versatility of the bike for what it is. Gotcha. So in [00:04:44] Craig Dalton: that first year, you were unhappy with the production partner in China that you had. Yeah. It could very easily have been the end of Sage titanium at that point. But what did you do? [00:04:54] David Rosen (Sage): I basically just stepped back for a moment and analyzed what was going on. [00:04:59] People, customers. The concept of our brand. They liked what we were doing as a small builder, or, the just the ability to offer it's this Oregon, the Oregon brand connection, all that sort of stuff. The bikes were authentic. The designs were good. But it was just, they liked what we were doing, but they didn't necessarily like the maiden China aspect. [00:05:21] And so it really. Yeah, you're absolutely right. We could have folded up right then and there and not known what to do, but instead I made the decision to push forward with maiden USA. And so in 2014 is when I pivoted the brand. And instead of being more of a budget focused, mid tier titanium brand, I was like, we're going all in on the premium stuff. [00:05:43] And that's when we started our relationship with ENVE and instead of buying. Shimano 1 0 5, we're now buying Shimano duress. And it's all carbon this, then it's just, we're going high end and frames are made in USA. That is always the key and being able to push that out and and get that out there. [00:06:00] And then as we've, as the brand has moved along, we've been able to slowly evolve it. So the designs have gotten better. The line has expanded. We found our niche. Gravel bikes in particular. And then the mountain bikes are doing really well for us. But then we've been able to expand with now our finishes. [00:06:16] And so we've been able to continue to evolve the brand over these past from where it started nine years ago, to where it is now, the brands, It's a complete turnaround. Other than the name there, there's not much, that's the same between the two, [00:06:29] Craig Dalton: interesting. So can you talk to the listener a little bit about why you love titanium as a frame material with a particular eye on the gravel market and what makes it a great material for gravel bikes? [00:06:40] David Rosen (Sage): So the reason I love titanium is it was always for me growing up, it was that space, age material, it was the stuff that was used in the space shuttle and, fighter jets and that sort of thing. So it's got this mystique about it, if you will. It was back in the I'm trying not to date myself, but back in the eighties, it was like, It was sexier. [00:07:04] It was it. Wasn't nothing wrong with steel. I love steel. I love aluminum. I love carbon. Everything has its place for where it should be, but the tie bikes back then there was just something mystical about them. You'd see plenty of steel bikes riding around plenty of aluminum bikes, but it was very few titanium bikes. [00:07:22] When you saw one, it was special. And so that always made an imprint on me kind of thing. And that's where I initially fell in love with it. The. What has drawn me to it from a builder standpoint? And the reason why I only focus on titanium is because of the durability of the material. [00:07:38] The the, how far it can bend the fatigue, resistance of the material. If the fact that it's rust-proof it's, I live in the Pacific Northwest, steel bikes are awesome, but they can rust if you don't take care of them. And if you take care of them, they're fine. But if you don't, they can rust titanium. [00:07:55] Doesn't rust. Titanium has a higher fatigue resistance point where you can bend the tube farther in titanium and it'll snap back before it breaks versus steel or aluminum for that matter. So inherently, then it then gives itself this ride quality. Again, maybe this is an old term, but it was called the magic carpet ride because it just smooths everything out. [00:08:19] And it's one of those things that when you're on it, if you ride a carbon bike on chip seal or an aluminum bike on chip seal or even steel for that matter, but then you write a tie, it there's a vibration, but if you ride titanium on chip seal, it mutes it out. It's just, it's really amazing what the material can do. [00:08:36] And the fact that it can be repaired easily. It's the forever bike. You're going to have a tie bike for 20, 30, 40 years. The only reason to change it at some point is just because it's outdated and that's, and even then, that's not really a reason to change it. Cause there's always, the desire to keep those historical bikes. [00:08:55] So yeah, my [00:08:56] Craig Dalton: father's got one sitting in the garage with, I think a mag 21 fork on it and cantilever lever brakes. [00:09:02] David Rosen (Sage): And he'll never get [00:09:03] Craig Dalton: rid of it, a reason for him to replace it, other than he doesn't know what he's missing, because he's never written disc, disc brakes at this point. [00:09:11] David Rosen (Sage): Exactly. But beyond that, it's just, it's a bike he's going to keep, and he's got a lot of good memories for it. [00:09:16] So [00:09:17] Craig Dalton: early it's at Sage, thinking about the cross-market and the commuter market. When did gravel start to become a thing? When did you start to see those trends start to appear and what your customers were asking for? [00:09:30] David Rosen (Sage): I would say I started to see it in 2015 2014 and 2015. So the, our first USA frames were 2014. [00:09:38] We had a road, we had a road frame and a cross. Which we brought up, we improve the designs based on what was originally made in China, made some refinements to it okay, we've took, we've taken our learnings and move forward. The commuter bike we dropped. And it just, it wasn't where I wanted the brand to be it. [00:09:54] Wasn't where I wanted the brand to focus on. And so drop that and just started with the two bikes to begin with. But it left this hole in the line of where I felt we needed to another bike in place to round things out. And my friends and I, at that time would go out on these rides. We take our cross bikes and we were going and doing gravel rides on our cross bikes. [00:10:15] Some guys would use their rode bikes and they, 25 mill tires was considered a fat tire back in 2014 and 2015. And we'd go out and go ride gravel. And, some buy, somebody would get a flat sometimes. You wouldn't and sometimes, we'd get into some gnarly stuff and that's why you wanted a crossbite, cause it had bigger tires, but then the road bikes always beat you to the gravel, and so it was just this weird mix of what's the right bike. And there were quite a few events. Grind Duro is a great example of one where it was very much about choose your weapon. And because there were, there's plenty of paved road and grind. But then there's plenty of crazy stages of, single track and gravel road and what's the right bike. [00:11:01] And so people were bringing all these different bikes and there was no specific bike that you could just point to and go, that's the type of bike I need for this event. And there was, it was a wild west kind of mentality, which is really kinda cool. And I still think the gravel segment the way it continues to evolve. [00:11:18] Exhibits that kind of, bring what, run what you got thing and, and modify what you can, but it was around them that I started seeing that desire for something along those lines. And for me here for where I live in Beaverton, Oregon, which is just outside of Portland, I'm a little west of Portland. [00:11:34] Yeah. There is, there's plenty of good gravel, like 10 miles from my house. So I'm not going to drive to the gravel. I'm going to ride my bike to the gravel. So the initial gravel bike I designed was really around the concept of, I wanted it to be fun on the road. And when I got to the gravel, I could tear up the gravel and then go ride for 40 miles on the gravel and then come back home for a 20 mile paved ride or whatever it was, wherever it dropped me off. [00:12:00] And so that was the Genesis of the first gravel bike. It was, you had to ride it to the gravel. It wasn't, I get people have to drive sometimes, that was the idea. And was [00:12:09] Craig Dalton: that the [00:12:10] David Rosen (Sage): Barlow? That was the Barlow correct. [00:12:13] Craig Dalton: And so what sort of tire size capacity did the bar [00:12:16] David Rosen (Sage): Barlow accept? [00:12:17] It's always accepted 40 millimeter tires. 700. Or six 50 by 50. There weren't a lot of tires in that size when it first came out. I use the ENVE all road fork as the fork of choice for the Barlow, because it was it's designed around a 38, but we can actually squeeze in a 40. So we've done it. [00:12:34] It's certain tires, it works great. Some tires not as great because the fork is designed for what it is. The frame clears a 40 no problem. But it's, the fork is a little bit of a. But we designed the bike around that. And so that gave us the ability to really push the envelope. So where everybody's saying, oh, 30 and 32 millimeter tires of the gravel, I'm throwing 30 fives and who's got the fattest 40 millimeter tire I could find. [00:12:58] And at the time that was great. And so the Barlow was really ahead of the game in that regard. And then [00:13:04] Craig Dalton: subsequently you introduced an, another model, the storm chaser. When did that come into the world? Sorry, storm. Storm king my bad. When did the storm king come into being and what were the sort of the drivers from the industry and riders that you were seeing that said, okay, the Barlow is one thing, but the storm king is going to be this other thing. [00:13:25] David Rosen (Sage): So I, I have a rider I sponsor he's a retired former world tour pro and he. He w he still races for me kinda thing. He does mountain, and he does gravel, and those are his focuses. And he took the Barlow to Unbound before it was relaunched as Unbound when it was DK. [00:13:44] And this was back in 2018, I believe if I remember correctly. And he took the Barlow there and he u…
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