The author gets to work (Image credit: Chris Davidson)
Well now that the off-season is over, it is time to head to the races. Convenient for me is the fact that the team that I have been coordinating all the off-season frame and parts selection for [Kenda/X-Fusion/Titus], happens to have its frame sponsor [Titus] in the same town as the first race of the NMBS calendar. So while parts started to accumulate at my house over the winter, some of it had to be forwarded to Titus, so I could assemble the last remaining bikes before the first event.
I am fortunate in that I have a close friend now working at Titus, Foye Troute, from my days at Shimano. Foye and I worked together for three years doing the Multi-Service support work at mountain bike races, and now he is the inventory and QC manager at Titus, and this would be the first opportunity that I would have to see him since Interbike last year.
I flew to Phoenix on Wednesday morning and went straight from the airport to Titus to get working on some assembly. Titus has amazing facility in Tempe where the bulk of the work takes place in building their legendary Ti and Exogrid ti/carbon frames. During my time there I got to take a look around and see the creation of their proprietary ti/carbon tubing and the welding of frames. It was interesting to find out that Titus' parent company, Vyatech Sports, uses the Exogrid and Isogrid technologies for many other sports applications, I saw ti/carbon golf shafts, sailing booms and softball bats while there.
After all the show-and-tell, there was work to be done, namely building bikes for the weekend's races. Each rider on Kenda/X-Fusion/Titus gets a custom ti Exogrid hardtail, and Racer-X dual suspension and an Oseo carbon Isogrid road bike.
Sue George is an editor at Cyclingnews. She coordinates all of the site's mountain bike race coverage and assists with the road, 'cross and track coverage.
