Sage Titanium - Dave Rosen Founder / CEO

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 used, he was using the Barlow and all the gravel events that were popping. And he was encountering challenging terrain would be the best way to put it. Just, big rocks big, just nasty, just eat your tires up rocks kind of thing. [00:14:07] And he came back and he said, okay here's my opinion on everything. We need bigger tires. And I need a little bit more of an upright riding position as opposed to not quite as well. Cause the Barlow is is a little bit more aggressive. It's not as aggressive as our road bike, but it's definitely slacker and a little bit more upright. [00:14:25] But he wanted it even more. And so that was the main driver because it was based on race input. So it was, is doing skull hollow, one 20 and DK at the time were the two big ones, other events, it was working great. But for these other events these, just these handful of them. Where the terrain was nuts. [00:14:44] He said, we need something bigger. And I saw the writing on the wall as there's more of these crazy events that are starting to pop up, we're going to need a bike. That's going to be able to compete in those events. Not just SBT is a great example of the Barlow's perfect Belgian waffle ride. The Barlow works perfect. [00:15:02] It depends on which Belgian waffle ride right now. But anyway, that was the gig. I find that  [00:15:06] Craig Dalton: fascinating for someone at that end of the spectrum of the sport, a professional athlete, noting that bigger fatter slacker is actually going to be faster in these events, because I think it is something that the listener can really take away. [00:15:20] It's really easy for you to think, oh, being on one of these road, plus bikes is what's going to make me faster, but in a lot of these events and particularly for the more average athlete who spending a longer time in the center, A more comfortable bike, a more stable bike with buy bigger tires could actually be the bike of choice. [00:15:38] I  [00:15:38] David Rosen (Sage): would agree. If you think about it, if you're choosing between a 32 millimeter tire versus a 40 millimeter tire or a 36 and a 50, whatever it may be. And you're thinking the smaller tire is going to be faster because it's less rotating weight and it's going to roll faster for the tread, whatever it may be. [00:15:57] Yeah. You're probably right. How many flats are you potentially fixing and how much time are you going to waste with flats? Whereas the rolling resistance of the larger tires, isn't really that far off of the smaller tires. Yes. You're carrying more weight, but if you have more assurance that you can go faster through the rough stuff without damaging the bike, you're going to be faster overall. [00:16:18] You look at the, you look at some of the pros like Ted king and those guys, I think they're always trying to push as big a tire as they can run without it being. So early slower,  [00:16:28] Craig Dalton: that seems to be the trend. And for me, like I'm spending 30, 40% more time out there on these courses than the pro athletes are. [00:16:35] So I've got to think about the general wear and tear. My day is probably more akin to an iron man triathlon than American Don,  [00:16:42] David Rosen (Sage): you and me both 12 hour days for you. Exactly. Yeah, me too.  [00:16:47] Craig Dalton: So let's talk a little bit more specifically about the storm king and the type of tires it can access.  [00:16:52] David Rosen (Sage): So it's designed around a 700 by 50 six 50 by two point. [00:16:58] Oh, I'm sorry. 2.2 is usually pretty good. Because we can make, because we make each storm king individually, one at a time, the customer really has the opportunity to specify, I am going to run this size tire kind of thing, so we can modify the rear end of the. To accommodate the tire, obviously picking the right fork is always key. [00:17:19] Of course. In instances we just had a customer, he sent us the wheel, the full wheel and the tire, and it's okay, great. And then we just, we throw it in the frame and make sure it fits. So this way we can truly customize it to what's the worst case scenario you're going to run on this bike. [00:17:34] Craig Dalton: Do you have a stock chain stay length that on the storm king or does it going to modify based on those criteria that the customer entrance.  [00:17:43] David Rosen (Sage): It's gonna, it's gonna modify based on it's this no, no stock chain stay length. It's gonna modify based on the based on the wheel size, the tire size and actually the drive train and the dry train specifically. [00:17:57] So is it GRX? Is it Eckhart? Is it force wide? Is it Altegra stuff like that kind of thing? All of those factors we actually play in to to designing the chain, stay length because if you get it wrong and you make it too short, you run into clearance issues that it's you're stuck, but if we know what you want going into it, we can build it specifically. [00:18:19] And we really we're dialing in the process. We continue to do it every day or making it,  [00:18:23] Craig Dalton: That might be a good segue into just describing for the listener. What does that customer journey look like if they want to get on a storm king, what does the process look like? How long does it take to get one? [00:18:34] David Rosen (Sage): So the process usually begins with the customer, listening to this podcast, seeing a review online or an ad in a magazine or something along those lines. And then pretty much reaching out through the website is usually how it works. It's very rare. As crazy as it sounds that somebody will buy a bike, sight unseen through the website, it happens, but it's, a complete stock build. Here you go. This is what I want. And that sort of thing. That's, it's rare because this is a very personal purchase. And so usually the customer is going to reach out through the contact form on our website. [00:19:10] Usually usually it's me who is responding, but it could be one of our other folks here. But nine times out of 10 it's usually me that everybody's speaking to. And they'll reach out through email, I'll respond back and we start a dialogue and it could be a case of let's get on the phone and talk it through and what's understand what the build is you're looking for. [00:19:30] And we can really customize the spec and the bill. You know of the complete bike. Some customers are only looking for a frame or a frame set, and that's fine too. And it's, let's go through the specs of that. And the process is quite a bit of email quite a bit of phone calls if needed. When the customer's ready to move forward, they put a deposit down and then the design process begins. [00:19:51] Usually if the customer has a fit that they've done recently and they want to use those fit numbers, then we use. If they're here local in Portland, then we have them see our fitter and we get, they get a professional fit done. And if they want to come into town, I've had a couple people actually fly in from Northern California, for example and have fits done here. [00:20:10] And then I get the numbers and, go to town on designing the frame and lead time on frames right now, I'd say is about four months from when we actually, when the design is. So that doesn't include the lead time. It doesn't include the time that we spend talking prior to and dialing in all that sort of stuff. [00:20:28] When the design is handed off to my welder right now, we're at about a four month lead time for framework.  [00:20:34] Craig Dalton: Are there limitations in terms of the areas of the bike that can be customized? Head tube, size, top tube lent anything that's off the table or is everything on  [00:20:42] David Rosen (Sage): the table now everything's on the table. [00:20:44] I've had one or two customers that have been very vocal about, I want the head tube to be this, and I want this to be the seat angle and that sort of thing. And it's a process we go through and I'm more than happy to accommodate the customers if they're, sure. That's what they want kind of thing. [00:20:59] But usually it's a case of, if I get your X, Y coordinates from your fit, I'm going to build you a storm king. And that's what it's going to be. If you want something that's completely dead. I'm working on an iron man bike for somebody right now. And that's a totally different bike than anything we offer. [00:21:15] So then that's much more of a personal process of what are you looking for and how do you want it to be, rather than I know what I want the storm king to be, and I'm going to make a storm king that fits you. Gotcha.  [00:21:25] Craig Dalton: Let's talk about that. Beautiful storm king. You brought to Utah, it had a lot of different finishes on it. [00:21:31] It did. Really and is that is for, we didn't have paint on it as well. It had cerakote. Okay. So let's go through, I think it's amazing that the number of options you offer and certainly the execution on that bike I'll post a picture of it because it was beautiful. Everybody needs to look at it, but let's talk about the different options for finish on a titanium frame. [00:21:50] David Rosen (Sage): We have four different options. We let's see, let's start with the standard finish that you see on most of the bikes on the website is our brushed finish. It's a raw titanium. It's very silvery looking. It's shiny. It's great for just durability. If you scratch it, you can take a Scotch-Brite pad and little shoeshine motion, then you can buff it out. [00:22:12] It's a great it's a great finish and it's just the classic titanium finish. That's finished. Number one, finish number two is bead blast where we basically put the frame in a giant cabinet, if you will, a sealed cabinet and we shoot it with a what's called media and media can be anything from glass beads to Walnut shells. [00:22:33] It just depends on what. And it, it impacts the frame and it changes the appearance and the finish and the texture of the frame itself. It doesn't damage the frame in any way, but it changes the finish. So a bead blast is usually a it's just, it has a different look to it. It's more of a dull look to it from there. [00:22:53] We then start getting into colors and that's where we've really exploded this year for the options and the custom work that we've been doing. If you look through our social media feed and as well as our custom page, we have a custom bike page where every custom bike gets a photo shoot and we do all that sort of stuff. [00:23:08] You can see the differences, but we've been doing a lot more with cerakote and with anodize for the frames anodize is if you seen the Chris king parts, they're blue they're purple. They're good. That's all anodized aluminum kind of thing. It's dipped in a bath. That's electrified. It comes out at a certain voltage. [00:23:26] It gives you a color.  [00:23:27] Craig Dalton: I think it's interesting David to drill into. I've seen some super intricate anodized look. Unlike the Chris king headset, which is, orange or red or whatever they do, you seem to have a technique in which you've got the titanium frame, which is maybe the, the brush titanium or whatever, and then small areas that are animated. [00:23:45] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah it's just a matter of the artwork that we do every custom frame that we do short of it just being, I just want logos done, but if there's artwork involved I have a graphic artist on staff. It has been in the art world for quite some time. He's a cycling buddy of mine. We've known each other for years, but he's an artist, a true artist kind of thing. [00:24:06] Like he does art shows and all that sort of good stuff. And he designs all the bikes. So every single bike is never repeated. Each individual bike is a rolling piece of art. If you want the bike, you're seeing the show bike that we have on the website, I can do something similar, but it'll never be that again. [00:24:23] It'll be it'll be sister bike. It won't be an identical twin kind of thing. But yeah we get a little crazy with the finishes that we do. And then we mix all of that in with Sarah code, which is we've. We been using paint, wet paint for quite some time. And paint's awesome. It, you can color match with it and we still do wet paint. [00:24:41] If a customer requests it, you can color match very specifically. To a specific item. If you have it, you can mix colors and that sort of thing. What we found with paint though, and with gravel bikes in particular, is it's not as durable as we would like. And the problem is that if you get a rock strike on your titanium, gravel bike with paint it is possible. [00:25:02] It could chip. And so that's not really an ideal situation. So we switched to cerakote, which is a ceramic coat. That's cured onto the frame and it's actually used on guns tanks, rocket parts, jet fighters. As whenever you see the paint that's on these vehicles and these, munitions, if you will that's cerakote and it's super resistant to heat damage from any sort of debris flying out of it. [00:25:29] I Heck if somebody can shoot a gun at a tank and the, the tanks spine cause of the Seroquel. That sort of thing. I'm pretty confident the bike is going to be okay from a rock strike. And and yeah, our painter is able to actually mix all of these all of these four different finishes together. [00:25:44] And we're able to make these incredible bikes of just total variety of just really just pushing them. The  [00:25:51] Craig Dalton: cerakote was the one I was least familiar with. And a couple of builders were using it out there in Utah at the end of the builder Roundup. How has it actually applied? Is it applied like a paint or a  [00:26:02] David Rosen (Sage): no it's more of a paint it's sprayed on. [00:26:05] So there is a masking process that goes on. The masking actually takes the most time for the bike itself for the actual paint work to be done. And basically once the bike is massed up, you pretty much split. As, you peel off the layers and as you spray it and that sort of thing. And then when all is said and done, you cure the bike it goes into an oven to cures and it can be sprayed in the morning, cured by lunch and ship out in the same day in the afternoon. [00:26:30] And it's done. Like you don't have to worry like the paints, soft, or it needs to still time just it's ready to ship. So it's pretty crazy. And it's super. And is  [00:26:39] Craig Dalton: it something that you can apply, in almost any design on the bike to any part of the bike,  [00:26:44] David Rosen (Sage): just about any design? It's really the limitation of the, of my artist and of the painter and being able to mask it. [00:26:51] Sometimes there are issues with tube shapes and that you're people thinking, people think of art and they think in a two dimensional sense as a flat canvas and the arts applied to it. But the reality is bicycles are three-dimensional rounded. There is no hard point to start and stop here and there. [00:27:10] So sometimes you have to make decisions and you have to make choices about how the artwork is going to lay on the frame itself. Because sometimes it may not work even the best intentions. It's eh, just not going to look right. And the tubes aren't exactly large like a canvas. So you have to think those things. [00:27:28] Yeah. I think that's  [00:27:29] Craig Dalton: The value in having. Artists be also a cyclist. They understand how the bike is constructed and the tube shapes and everything and also how it plays out, how it's going to look visually from within a Peloton to out there on the gravel road.  [00:27:42] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah, absolutely. [00:27:43] No he's fantastic about making the bike stand out for sure. And this particular show bike is I think it's, I think it's one of my favorites, period. There are some others that we've done that are pretty amazing as well. It would be hard honestly, to stack them all up next to each other and pick one. [00:27:59] So it's a rough thing. So I'll take this one for right now and go. This is my favorite for the time being nice. Are  [00:28:05] Craig Dalton: there other trends in the gravel market that you're looking forward to exploring?  [00:28:09] David Rosen (Sage): I think I'm interested to see where suspension goes. It's I'm not saying I'm fully. [00:28:17] Committed to suspension and I think it should be on all bikes. I think it's certain applications in certain arenas and I don't necessarily think it should be a mountain bike fork. For example, that's just slimmed down. I think it needs to be its own technology because I think gravel is different. And I think there needs to be different engineering behind the design of the fork itself. [00:28:40] It needs to be lighter. It does need to be sexier. And it needs to, it's minimal travel. We don't need, you don't even need a hundred millimeters. Yeah. Travel for a gravel bike. It's, at some point again, I always go back to the original. My Barlow of you have to ride, you could ride from your house on the pavement to the gravel ride back to the pavement, ride back home. [00:29:00] So the bikes should be able to handle both. Other than that, if it's just only good off road, then it's really a drop bar mountain bike at that point. I'm interested to see where that goes. I think dropper posts will continue to I think that's more of an immediate trend that's coming. [00:29:16] I just, I see the value of it and, I saw it a grow DEO. There were guys that were just bombing down those descents baby head rocks, and just blasting down them on 50 mil tires and the dropper posts because they got the saddle out of the way. And it. It, it does add to the capability of the bike. [00:29:32] And then when we got out on the road, they pop the seat back up and everything was fine. Yeah.  [00:29:36] Craig Dalton: That was my technique. I knew I was going to get gapped off on all the climbs, but I had a hope, I had a hope if I rode my bike card with that dropper post down on the dissents, but I might just bridge back up to the group that just dropped me. [00:29:47] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah, exactly. No, it  [00:29:49] Craig Dalton: works great. I too. And the listener well knows. I'm fascinated by the idea of suspension in ground. All your points are spot on. It's going to have to be this delicate balance, to not take away the capabilities. We're not trying to build mountain bikes here. They still need to be bikes that can get fast on the road, but to each their own in terms of gravel, right? [00:30:09] We've got listeners all over the world whose experiences are dramatically different. And what I hope is that it just becomes this type of thing, where you look at someone who has a more aggressively set up gravel bike. You just understand that's probably what they have in their backyard and someone who's, riding the Barlow with 30 twos on it, that could be totally capable. [00:30:30] It could be overkill for the types of gravel roads they ride, but to each  [00:30:34] David Rosen (Sage): their own. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It's, it's we see the same sort of thing with mountain bikes. There's this trend towards not a trend. It's here. I wouldn't call it a trend and I'm a big fan of it. [00:30:45] Big hit long travel bikes with slack, that angles that basically five years ago were downhill bikes. And now they're single crown and Duro bikes. And guys are, we're doing, I'm doing crazy jumps on the weekends and all that sort of stuff, but does the person in Florida, for example or Texas where it's pancake flat for the most part and I'm sure there are technical steep places where you need it. [00:31:07] So I apologize. Not, I'm not trying to characterize the entire state that way, but generally speaking Florida is pretty flat. So do you need a long travel, slacked out bike? Probably not thing. And to your point about the gravel, there's places where that, a 32 mil tire is going to be perfect there, and there's other places where a 50 mil tire and it's their backyard. [00:31:28] So yeah, I would totally agree with that.  [00:31:30] Craig Dalton: You'll start to get that feedback next season in 2022 for people running time. Front suspension, forks on their bikes. And it would be curious to see, much like your professional athlete gave the feedback that ultimately led to the storm king. We may see that feedback coming back saying having a little bit of suspension on the front simply makes the bike faster. [00:31:52] And if it's faster, people are going to go for it from a race perspective.  [00:31:56] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah, no, I would agree. At some level it is 1990 for mountain bikes. But at the same time, it's the gravel bikes of today are far more capable than those. What were mountain bikes back then? And it's pretty impressive with how the bike is evolved. [00:32:10] Yeah, I totally  [00:32:11] Craig Dalton: agree with you. I had that same feeling back in the early nineties around mountain biking that every year, every month it seemed like a new idea was being put forward and people were testing and learning and it took, it was this great and super enjoyable journey. If you were involved in it to watch it out. [00:32:28] David Rosen (Sage): Yeah, no, absolutely. It was a lot of fun. And it's, I think gravel is going through the same sort of, evolution  [00:32:34] Craig Dalton: actually. We're all here. We're all listening. We're all involved the communities as all eyes on the innovation. Super exciting time. I appreciate you joining me today, Dave, and giving us a little more of an overview, a deep dive into Sage titanium. [00:32:48] I loved the work that you showed in Utah, and I wish you all the. [00:32:52] David Rosen (Sage): Thanks. I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.  [00:32:55] Craig Dalton: Cheers.  [00:32:56] Big, thanks today for joining us this week, I have to say, I really do love that storm king. It takes a lot of boxes for me, the finished work was beautiful. The clearances are right up my alley, and I think it would be a hell of a lot of fun to ride that bike. Also another big, thanks to ENVE for sponsoring the podcast this week. And for sponsoring this entire series, it's really been a pleasure. Getting introduced to a lot of their partners around the world, looking through their componentry and touring their factory. I've mentioned it on earlier podcasts, but I was very impressed with the amount of testing they do. In-house and just the fabrication process in general, in Ogden, Utah, the attention to detail.  [00:33:40] The passion of the employee base. And everything about ENVE's work there in the United States just really makes me happy. So be sure to check them out.  [00:33:49] When you support our podcast partners, you're supporting the podcast itself.  [00:33:53] I wouldn't be able to continue doing what I'm doing without their support.  [00:33:57] And I wouldn't do this without your support. The gravel community has been super embracing of what I've been doing.  [00:34:03] And I've loved getting to know some of you in in-person events. But more broadly through the ridership community. If you're not already a member of this free community, just visit www.theridership.com. We'd love to have you. And if you're interested in supporting the podcast further, please visit buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride.  [00:34:24] There's any number of ways in which you can support what I'm doing here. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels