FABRICATION
Each of our frames is designed from the ground up, going from paper sketches to AutoCAD, and then prototyping. If you want to build the best mountain bikes, you can not use an “open mold” as it’s known in the industry, which is basically someone else’s design, with your stickers on it.
Despite the revisions that come from the evolution of a model over time, we’re proud of each frame we make because we’ve taken them all through this rigorous process. As a result, we’re always looking for new and better ways to build the highest quality mountain bikes that we can, because pride is on the line and there’s no feeling like realizing your success out on the trail, in the dirt.
Our titanium frames are fashioned only from 3AL 2.5V ti for the main triangles, which are also heat-treated after the butting, tapering and forming processes.
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Head tubes
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Bottom bracket shells
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Drop-outs
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Custom Yokes
For our aluminum frames, we use 6000 and 7000 series tubing, which is heat-treated to increase strength. Aluminum dropouts are CNC-machined from 7000 series aluminum, too. Most of the aluminum tubing used in RSD frames are also hydroformed to achieve the design objectives.
Here are the 10 stages of manufacturing:
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Acquire raw tubing
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Cut tubing to size
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Butting
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Heat treatment
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Mitering
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Spot welding for alignment
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Welding
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Machining inner head tube, BB shell and seat tube
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Complete frame quality control check
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EN testing
QC checks are performed multiple times throughout the process:
ALL materials, tubing and frame components are checked after spot welding of the front triangle, when geometry is adjusted and re-checked, and then again for the rear triangle. After machining, all dimensions and geometry are QC’d yet again.
