mtb-timeline

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Merlin Metalworks

Merlin Metalworks was founded in November 1986 by Mike Augspurger, Gary Helfrich, who both were working for Fat City Cycles and Gwyndaf Jones in Somerville, Massachusetts. Gary, had experimented with plasma arc welding titanium frames which Chris Chance declined to put into production ¹⁾²⁾ Merlin sourced their double butted titanium tubes from Reynolds³⁾, the first to offer such tubing.

A year later Mike Augspurger left Merlin to found One-Off Titanium in Florence, Mass. where he creates experimental and custom-designed products, mostly related to bicycles. At the same time Gary Helfrich left for California to later work for Ibis, Trek and Serotta. Gwyn stayed on as the owner of Merlin for over ten years where “he worked on a wide range of bicycle engineering and design projects⁴⁾ In 1997 as few Merlin employees left to form Seven Cycles at which point Merlin was acquired by Saucony. In 2000 Merlin was sold to Merican Bicycle Group who then sold Merlin to Competitive Cyclist in 2011. In 2018 Merlin was sold off to Janus Cycle Group, where it appears to continue to thrive as Merlin Bikes, offering nearly a dozen off-the-rack or custom models.

Merlin built a race winning frame for Joe Murray in 1986, soon rebranded as a Marin Team Titanium.. In 1989, the Subaru-Montgomery road race team, which included Lance Armstrong, used Merlins from 1989-1993.

Resources:

18 year old Lance Armstrong on a Merlin at the 1989 San Diego GP, Subaru-Montgommery team. shutterstock

Mike Augspurger working on his One-Off performance Ti wheelchair. Photo by Mike Augspurger, ca. 2014 Smithsonian Institute
Gary Helfrich posing with his first 1985 Fat Chance Ti prototype, in 2016. oneofftitanium

Gwyndaf Jones Gwyn in his workshop, Carlisle, Massachusetts, 2010. Photo by Michael Woon, https://woon.wordpress.com/category/mechanic/.

1985 "Earlybike" pre-Merlin prototype

2nd titanium frame made by Gary Helfrich. His first Ti frame effort was immediately crushed. Original price: $105, as sold by Gary Helfrich. Not a true MTB and not officially in the timeline. Rear Atom drum brakes (later upgraded to bolt on v-brakes,) five speed rear freewheel with road derailleur.

1985 Prototype merlintitanium & merlintitanium.

1986 "Fat Chance"

Mike Augspurger: “That is not a Fat Chance. I cut those dropouts myself on our (Merlin's) band saw.” Early Merlin Pre-Merlin with Fat Chance decals. Owned by a Fat City employee. Shimano Deore XT M730 parts, with Cunningham?? u-brakes rear, Cooks Bros cranks, quick releases & stem, pressed in bearings, campy headset, box crown fork with Reynolds 531 decals, fork. Perhaps the first true titanium true MTB.

Very early use of M730, which only shipped at the end of 1986. ⁵⁾
No Merlin badged MTBs were sold in 1986, especially as they briefly called themselves Kestrel Metalworks for those few months.

1986 Fat Chance facebook

1987 MTB

1987 Merlin Marin Team Titanium The first 100 Marin Team Titaniums were sold by Marin in their 1988 lineup, and another 100 or so were badged as Merlins. Shimano 105 road rear derailleur, Suntour roller cam brakes, horizontal dropouts. Marin later switched to Litespeed as a titanium frame supplier.

1988 MTB

Shimano XT M730 (1986-88), rollercams front and rear, vertical dropouts. Frame #213.

1988 MTB mtbr

1989 MTB

Shimano XT M730(1986-88), very early Rockshox RS-1 (1989, thus)((This is the earliest example of Rockshox appearing on a MTB for sale. The next ealiest is a 1990 Ferraroli with later RS-1's.

1989 MTB mombat

1990 Elevator

Prototype w/elevated chainstays, cantilever brakes, titanium girder fork integrated with stem/bar combo, hand-cut dropouts.

1990 Elevator https://merlintitanium.com/merlin_evolution.html

1991 MTB

Suntour/Pedersen SE XC self energizing brakes,

1991 MTB bikerecyclery

1992 MTB

Full Shimano XTR M900 (1991-94)

1992 MTB mountainbikemuseum

1993 MTB

Shimano XTR M900 derailleurs, chainset, WTB Speedmaster brakes, WTB hubs, Steve Potts type II fork,

1993 MTB vintagemtbworkshop

1994 Newsboy

“More of a beach cruiser than a true mountain bike.” Limited run of 100 examples. Internal cable routing, 1×8 gearing, (Speedmaster?) rollercams front and rear, Steve Potts fork?, front wheel stabilizer? Resurrected in 2002 and then again 2023+ and available today: merlinbikes.

1994 Newsboy theproscloset

1995 XLM

Note the Ibis stem, likely made by Gary Helfrich.

1995 XLM merlintitanium

¹⁾

Fat City did sell titanium handlebars in their 1985 catalog.

²⁾

“Gary made a plasma welder by cobbling a Thermal Dynamics plasma torch to a Miller Synchrowave 300 TIG machine. The Synchrowave was not equipped with a pilot arc mechanism which allows the plasma torch to start the main welding arc so there were some issues there and he also had overheating problems with the torch lines. He had basically abandoned the plasma concept by … November 1986 and he had installed a conventional TIG torch back on the Synchrowave. … The plasma welding was as much a marketing item as anything else since it didn't offer that much of an edge over conventional TIG for the wall thicknesses we were welding.” –Scott P. Bengtson, https://fatcogs.com/threads/1985-ti-fat-chance.3611/

³⁾

See Ti tube specs at: https://www.reynoldstechnology.biz/materials/titanium/t-3-2point5ti/.

⁴⁾

Gwyndaf went on to teach it MIT after Merlin: MIT D-lab. See also: Gwyn's D-lab bio.

⁵⁾

Steve Potts offered M730 in 1986 - and no one else?

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