Handbuilt Ideas from Bespoked Dresden: Steel, Titanium and Clever Engineering

By MTBSA contributor

Bespoked Dresden’s September 2026 show offered a look beyond the mainstream catalogue: handmade frames, unconventional drivetrains and small companies exploring their own answers to familiar mountain-bike problems. Here are the ideas from the first-day report that caught our attention.

Terra Nera: a configurable park bike

Made in Arezzo, Italy, the Terra Nera uses straight 25CrMo4 steel tubing and i-Track suspension. Rear travel can be set at 200 or 210 mm, paired with a 180–200 mm fork. Although normally supplied with a gearbox, the design also allows a conventional drivetrain.

Three 27.5-inch dropout options provide 435, 450 or 465 mm chainstays, while the 29-inch option gives 456 mm. ZS56 headset interfaces at both ends open up reach- and angle-adjustment options.

Small workshops, very different frames

Vienna builder Don Sebastiano’s Shredderalla was his sixth frame, built for his own riding. It pairs 170 mm rear travel with a 180 mm fork and mixes straight-gauge steel with Columbus tubing. Exposed brazed details, large gussets and small printed fittings make the fabrication part of its identity.

Angle Bikes in Brno takes another route: individually built carbon frames with rider-selected geometry, travel and paint. Rider weight and riding style help determine the lay-up. The reported enduro-frame weight is around 2.4 kg, with a quoted build time of two to three months. Internal carbon guides assist cable installation.

Components and drivetrain experiments

Projekt 1919, a new brand from Alfred Thun GmbH, displayed a square-taper crank with an eight-bolt chainring interface. It is machined from 7075 aluminium in-house, with local coating.

Intend’s Unicorn sub-brand is intended for limited releases sold directly to riders. Special colour combinations are the main focus, with the possibility of different constructions. It is not an unrestricted custom-order service.

Hage Bikes showed a rear-axle-mounted Coaxial Drivetrain Tensioner for gearbox and belt-drive frames. Moving the tensioner away from the front chainring is intended to improve ground clearance. Its developer says the arrangement can accommodate up to 210 mm rear travel.

Titanium takes on enduro

Heintz’s Fundamentalist targets 160–170 mm rear travel, a 63.5° head angle and 79° seat angle. Chainstays run from 455 mm in small to 470 mm in extra-large, emphasising a long rear centre across the range.

For South African riders, this is an international show report rather than a local buying guide. Prices, shipping, warranty support and component availability need individual confirmation. It is filed under News because it reports on a past exhibition, not an upcoming event or a comparative bike test.

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