Our friend and contributor Colt Fetters, along with partner Mark Gomez, are launching a bike brand today! Buena Onda Bikes is based in Durango, CO building titanium bikes in small batches. Below, Colt provides an overview of Buena Onda and shares a few important details about the brand including their “community supported bicycle” model, local builder John Siegrist, and their first offering which is a versatile titanium hardtail…
The Bike
Buena Onda: [bwe.na own·da] • phrase. Good vibes. Nice, approachable, and friendly. A pleasure to be around. Popularized in Latin American surf culture.
Our bicycles are built with versatility in mind. Whether you’re bikepacking, shredding local trails, grinding some gravel, or cruising around town with a basket full of groceries, this bike can be with you for life, adapting to life’s changes and your interests. Throw a rigid fork on it, maybe some drop bars, go singlespeed, mount a rack, or a basket, and just enjoy riding the darned thing.
It starts with a hand-crafted titanium frame. Designed to run a 130mm suspension fork, or build it rigid for a bikepacking machine. It’s got the mounts for bottles and racks for the longer days, and geometry to support you regardless of how long you are riding. A frame large enough to fit a frame bag and a reach long enough for some swoopy bars to top off the bike. The Buena is ready for whatever you throw at it!
Why Colt likes it: It’s the perfect bike for riding the Colorado Trail, loaded or unloaded.
Why Mark likes it: It’s the only mountain bike I need. From after-work rides to weeklong excursions, this is the bike I reach for every time.
Frame Details
Tubing: The finest U.S.-made titanium tubes on the market. Cold worked stress received grade 9 tubing milled in the USA to Aerospace hydraulic specs. Straight Gauge, 3/2.5 CWSR Titanium
Head Badge: Custom designed & Hand-Fabricated by Revolution Jewelry
Finish: Ceramic Bead Blast with Brushed Logo
The frames are made in Durango by John Siegrist, an award-winning welder with 30 years of experience. You might know him as the guy who started DEAN Bicycles in his garage in 1989.
Specs
- Optimal Fork Travel for Suspension Builds: 130mm
- Rear Hub Spacing: 148×12
- Bottom Bracket: T47 Threaded, 73mm
- Dropouts: Paragon Sliding Dropouts: comes standard with traditional dropouts except for Transmission build. See all additional dropout insert options here (available separately).
- Seatpost: Straight Seattube, 31.6mm ream, 34.9 Collar
- Cable Routing: Single port, non-driveside, internally tubed through downtube and externally routed under chainstays
- Bottle Mounts: 2x bottle cages in frame, Triple bottle cage mounting on downtube
- Rack Mounts: Lower rack eyelets on dropouts standard on all frames: frames can utilize a rack mount seat collar for upper compatibility (optional)
- Headtube/Headset: 44mm Headtube/ ZS44/28.6 EC44/40 Headset
- Max tire clearance: 29×2.6
Warranty
Buena Onda offers a 5-year limited warranty on all Titanium frames. In the event your frame is outside of the warranty period, we will work with you to maintain a reasonable repair cost.
Ordering Process
Buena Onda Bikes is a little different than your average bicycle manufacturer. We operate on a small batch, “community-supported bicycle” model.
Starting a bike brand is an expensive endeavor. The bicycle community is about the strongest community we’ve ever known, especially here in our hometown of Durango. What we’re doing isn’t all that different than community-supported agriculture (CSA). Farmers need money to get started, so they sell their crops in advance. As for Buena Onda, we’ll be putting out small batches of bikes every quarter. To get a bike, you’ll put down a 50% deposit, then when the bike is finished, we’ll send it to you. By supporting our brand via this ordering process, we’re offering low introductory pricing as a reward for helping us get off the ground.
More info about ordering and pricing.
Local
Buena Onda effectively uses 4 local Durango, CO businesses to bring these bikes together. From our welder, local bike shop, and branding artist, to the guy who makes our vinyl masks, we’re trying to keep it local. Even our Buena Bars are bent just a few hours south in Albuquerque.
See more at Buena Onda Bikes and learn more about their first small batch presale!
