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Road to NAHBS 2016: Dmitry Nechaev of Triton Bikes Russia

By Alexey Bubryak, LIS Fabrication
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By Alexey Bubryak, LIS Fabrication
By Alexey Bubryak, LIS Fabrication

One of the most exciting aspects of this NAHBS are the international builders. And out of that crop, we have Triton Bikes Russia to really look forward to. The antics of Dmitry and his crew of titanium frame builders have been all over social media in the weeks leading up to the show (if you’re not following them, you’re really missing out).

Dmitry kicked off his bike industry career out of a need for a trials frame, one he could not attain easily in Russia. After years of sourcing them outside of the country (and a brief stint in the professional world), he saw the opportunity to up his game by bringing manufacturing in house. Today, Triton makes titanium frames across all categories and Dmitry, as you will read, is excited about basically everything.

BIKERUMOR: What is your origin story? How did your company get its start?

DMITRY: I was riding bike trials since I was a kid. In those years (1999-2000) it was pretty complicated to buy a trials frame in Russia. I got a Ti trials frame from a local frame builder and it was a nice frame. I used to go to London for a few summers to study English. I met many trials riders there and they were interested in my bike. This is when my friend Luke from Triton Cycles UK told me we should try selling Ti frames in the UK. I went to the factory where my frame was built and we agreed that they would build frames for us under our Triton name. I was 20 back then and it did work out for a bit but it was rather a hobby during my university years. I studied finance and did work for UN and one famous European investment bank and I was going to get back to it once my studies were finished. Then the crisis hit and there were no vacant positions in the investment banking/finance by the time I graduated in 2009. IB taught me to work hard but I always felt as a business owner. I decided to try bikes again. I loved it and I knew a lot about it. I drove to the shop where they’d built early Triton frames and we started building them again. I told myself: okay, I was a kid and this was fun during university times. Now I have a lot of free time and a lot of passion. Let’s try and spend one year working on this, 24/7. If it works out, I will be doing this. If not, I will try to find a job in finance.

Photo by Dmitry Karpov
Photo by Dmitry Karpov

I was poor at that time. No job, I was self-employed as a minicab driver with my Toyota. At that time I met my future wife and told her to believe in me. And she did.

A few days after writing on the forums that Triton was now back, I got a pretty good order from Jogi who is now the Triton unicycle distributor in Germany and Europe. I was happy! I fixed my car, got a new bed and I believed in this thing. This was in the end of 2009.

Later in 2010 I was not super happy with the quality of the frames I sourced. I knew I had to own a shop to properly control the work, to get the frames the way I want them. I started looking for a shop space and got to speak with a guy who was interested in this future business. He became the co-owner of Triton Bikes. He helped me out with the shop space and invested in the machines and Anvil Bikes jig and tools. I invested all of my time and money. And still do. Only in May 2012 we finally built our first titanium frame. It was a bike for a family member. The first like 15 frames were built for us for the tests. A lot of work was done. So many tools machined. Welder, machinist, assembly person employed, I asked my dad to quit his job and join the family business. Only in 2013 I was OKAY about the quality. They were good frames. In the year 2016, I love most of them.

By Alexander Shtyrov
By Alexander Shtyrov

BIKERUMOR: How has your style changed from your first year? Are you still building what you initially set out to build?

DMITRY: The first Tritons were trials bikes. We no longer build them. Our frames are pretty expensive for an average trials rider (16-18 years old). We later switched to mountain bikes and we’d built hundreds of 29er frames. I wanted to build roadies too but there was an issue. I posted about Triton at one major MTB forum and at another roadie forum. The MTB thread is still there and many customers learnt about us from the progress posts I wrote. The roadie forum admin deleted the thread immediately and thus we didn’t really get attention from road bike riders at that moment (lol). But time was passing and we started building most type of frames: MTB, Roadies, CX, touring, fat bike, semi-fat.

Photo by Alexey Bubryak
Photo by Alexey Bubryak

650B+ and 29ers are the most popular now, roadies/gravel demand is growing strongly.

BIKERUMOR: What got you excited about building bikes when you first started out?

DMITRY: I worked at a bank. I was paid some good money for creating electronic/printed analysis that didn’t instantly reflect the amount of work I did. I couldn’t touch what I did. Bikes: DAMN! You talk to a guy who has a dream, your customer. You prepare a drawing. You print a drawing. You imagine the future project in your head. And then a few weeks (or months?) later you hold the actual thing that was once an idea. This is very, very exciting. Both to the customer and myself. I managed to employ the people who are passionate about bikes. It may not be a super well paid job, but it’s a dream job and my guys share the excitement of creating an item that never existed. I still get goosebumps while writing this. It’s 3AM here and I think I have called the US suppliers/friends around 40 times today while preparing everything for NAHBS. And you know what? I am tired physically, there’s nothing left to eat at Triton shop, but I am burning HOT inside. Excitement!

BIKERUMOR: What gets you really stoked about what you do today?

DMITRY: I was preparing an investor teaser the other day and calculated the countries we’d shipped frames to. Tritons are ridden in 35 countries of the world! Main customers come from Russia, USA and Germany. But when I ship to…New Caledonia! Holy smokes that’s cool. And then my customer builds the bike and sends me a photo and writes: “Dear Dmitry and Triton team, thanks for the bike, I love it!” – at this point I get SUPER HAPPY. This business is tough. Especially when you are so far from your customers. Like, I need to wait 3 weeks to get the certain Park Tool reamer delivered. It will travel across the ocean to reach us. Or the expensive shop rent payment is due and you just bought your Ti tubing in advance and the account is empty. You are waiting for some magic to happen and just work and work. It’s freezing cold and the diesel is frozen in your car, it’s snowing and it’s icy and you fall. And it hurts because you haven’t ridden your bike for 4 months already and muscles are not used to moving. Then you hear this incoming email and there’s a picture of your customer with a happy face, riding a Triton, in Nevada or Philippines and he sends greetings. At this point I get back on my feet and say to myself in Russian “КАЙФ!” (something like FUCK YEAH”) and I smile like an idiot. And give money to poor.

Photo by Vladimir Dybok
Photo by Vladimir Dybok

UPDATE: I read that facebook post by Don Ferris from Anvil Bikes. He said that nobody cares if you struggle. Every frame builder does. It’s better when you make money.

So one more source of excitement: THE SHIT WORKS! People love it, people pay for it! I can afford to travel with my family! Our currency is super low now! People travel 40% less outside Russia than in 2014! Oil price is down, dollar is expensive. Meanwhile we build bikes and we can afford to travel to NAHBS. That’s awesome! Don, I will make more money and will invest more into your tools. Thanks for reminding me that my shit works!

By the way it’s pretty cool to be far from the main market. We are rare in Russia. There are only a handful of classic frame building shops in our huge country with 142 million inhabitants. Building bikes, riding bikes is not yet that deep in the culture as it is in Europe. This means we get a lot of attention. Newspapers and magazines, TV channels – we get a lot of coverage. For free. This brings many customers and we get noticed.

BIKERUMOR: What’s the cool thing you’re bringing to the show this year?

DMITRY: It’s pretty stupid but we won’t bring the most interesting project we are building with our friends from CycleMonkey – a Pinion/belt equipped 29er. Too bad one of the employees got to hospital two weeks ago so we had to slow down.

We are bringing a bike called Triton Streetfighter. My customer wanted a road bike for aggressive/fast riding in the streets of Moscow. A bike that he could also bunny hop over potholes. So we had built a 700c roadie with 35mm slick Kojak tires, full ENVE cockpit and wheels, wide mountain ENVE flat bar for extra control, DuraAce Di2 group for super fast shifts. The bike is bead blasted matte and it’s got blue anodized decals, all in Cyrillic. It’s pretty interesting that more you hear about Russia on the news (sometimes not in the best way, right?) the more orders we get with the decals in Russian (Тритон) and that Russian Matryoshka doll on the seat tube. We put more Russia into frames than just logos. Our bikes are not the lightest ones, but we build them to last (this sounds very American too).

Photo by Michael Feldmann
Photo by Michael Feldmann

BIKERUMOR: What advice would you give someone wanting to do what you do?

DMITRY: DON’T! It’s a trap! An expensive one, too.

If you do it, believe in what you do. Be prepared for some tough work for at least a few years. With some very sad and happy moments within. May the force be with you!

I’d love to thank my team and family for the work and support! Mom and dad, my wife Olya and my two sons who rarely see me, my guys: Vladimir, Oleg, Stanislav, Norbert, Nikolay, Alexander, Grigory and Konstantin. I love you guys!

Photo by Vladimir Dybok
Photo by Vladimir Dybok

Spasibo!

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21 Comments
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davidfrench
8 years ago

That’s my man! See you in Sacramento friday. 🙂

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  davidfrench

See you Mr DirtySixer! Hope to read your story here one day. Probably next NAHBS? You have come through a struggle too

Hongjian Tan
8 years ago

Hi Dmitry, it has been almost 2 years since I have returned my frame to you for repair works. Not much is heard from you during this two years. I know you are very busy but I would appreciate it very much that you would remember your early customers, especially when you are getting more popular. Hope NAHBS would be good for you and hear from you soon. – Hongjian

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Hongjian Tan

Hi HJ. Let me come back and we should get it going ASAP.

We should have a manager soon to carry every customer ON TIME

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Hongjian Tan

Hi Hongjian! Let me come back to Russia and we should get it going ASAP.
We should have a manager soon to carry every customer order/case ON TIME.
Sorry about this.

Dmitry

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Hongjian Tan

NOW that’s a good example of the power of Internet. Always provide customer service timely. Whatever happens. Because one day one comment may spoil a lot of hard work done in years.

Hongjian Tan
7 years ago
Reply to  Hongjian Tan

Hey all! Just to update that I have received the frame sometime ago. Everything is sorted now: the frame has great built, rides great and Dmitry has been fantastic about this. I’m very happy and won’t hesitate to get another Triton……..when i have the $ 🙂

Cheers,
Hongjian

Darwin
Darwin
8 years ago

Still rockin’ my Triton, Dmitry! Thanks.

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Darwin

Thanks for your support Darwin!

Mateo A.
Mateo A.
8 years ago

I have been riding my Triton road bike here in the U.S. for almost three years now, it is fantastic! Triton bikes are top notch and Dmitry and his team are equally great.

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Mateo A.

Thanks for your support Mateo! Get back to us for more bikes! Btw one of your colleagues’ bikes will be at NAHBS this weekend

will
will
8 years ago

I remember wanting a Triton trials frame back in the day. They were a bit pricey for a trials frame, but pretty cheap for a titanium frame! Not many folks have ever bothered with titanium for a trials bike (anyone remember the Capriolo?), so they were especially cool. Glad to see he’s branched out into other bikes in the later years, but a shame they don’t do trials bikes anymore.

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  will

Yeah I still have a ti trials Triton 20″ bike but it really makes little sense to build them. Although they still are being ridden and they last a lot longer than the alu trials frame

Jesse R.
Jesse R.
8 years ago

Looking forward to meeting you in person this weekend Dmitry! As one of the first US recipients of one of Triton’s frames back in April of 2012, I can’t speak highly enough of the experience of working with these guys, and of the bike, which has taken me thousands of miles through some incredible places… and since then it looks like things have only improved in quality and creativity! I’m ready for another…

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Jesse R.

Thanks Jesse! Love your bike. Come to our booth, I will have something to show you

Jochen
Jochen
8 years ago

Proud me owns Tritons Fatbike/29+ convertible No 3 and I added a marvel of a road/gravel bike to it last year. The shit works as he says, and how it works. Sold all my carbon stuff meanwhile. Awesome crew and really good stuff. Keep on Dmitry.

Frippolini
Frippolini
8 years ago

I sent them an email a couple of months ago asking about their product, never heard anything from them… just like sending a message to cosmos / space, it goes out but don’t expect to hear anything back. Would be very hesitant to send them money…
Good luck.

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Frippolini

Wow
the only reason you got no response was that Google probably took it to a spam folder. It did happen a few times already.
If you click my name here you will reach my Facebook. If you are still interested I will get you a deal due to non-response. Please reach me anyway. I want to know your name/email to try to trace the email.
Thanks!

Frippolini
Frippolini
8 years ago
Reply to  Dmitry Nechaev

Thanks for replying on my comment, thank you also for your proposal of giving me a better price due to non-response, I appreciate your effort.
My email might have ended up in spam – correct. But please, take more care of potential customers and inquiries. I read about you in Vedomosti and based on that article I looked at your website and I sent you an email – and this was a couple of months ago.
To keep things short, I’m glad you responded now and I see that you take this seriously. I wish you all the best, and when I’ll be shopping for a new bike I’ll give your brand a closer look. 🙂

Dmitry Nechaev
8 years ago
Reply to  Frippolini

Thank you for understanding and feel free to come say hi

Georg Klampferer
Georg Klampferer
8 years ago

Hi Dmitry,
Have fun at the NAHBS and continue to win over more people to Triton 🙂
Looking forward to receive my 3rd Triton this late spring and I´m 100% satisfied as well – hop by our place next time you are in Austria with Olya and the boys!!!
Cheers
George

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