Painted Titanium DBR Axis TT mystery

Hey folks

I saw this DBR Axis TT for sale recently and a few things caught my eye as strange, and was wondering what you guys thought.

Firstly, the biggest thing is the frame is painted. I thought all Axis TTs were unpainted and came in either satin or polished finished.

Second, the rear drop outs do not look like any other Axis TT I have seen. Axis TT dropouts are very distinctive, with cutouts, and obvious welding where the caps are stuck onto the ends of the stays.

Third: There is some kind of boss on the seat stay. The bottle cage bosses also do not look like the ones on my Axis.. my cages are all "rivnut" type inserts. These bosses look like they are brazed in

Finally, and this one is subtle, but it looks like the cross braces for the seat and chainstays are curved, while they are straight sections on every other TT i've seen.

The seller insisted that the frame was Ti and it came from the factory like that, and the bike shop sticker over the paint would definitely seem to reinforce this claim. That being said, the drop outs and brazed looking bosses remind me more of steel than Ti.. The bike has already sold so it's not super important, but has anyone ever seen a DBR Axis TT like this before?

Personally I don't think that's a tt or made from ti. I own a ti version and there are so many differences. The rear rack mount boss on the seat stay is not something you see on top end 'race' bikes. The rear stay tubes are way smaller, drop outs etc not the same. Welding isn't typically what you associate with ti. I think it's 100% steel.

Re:

Steel…
Try a magnet on it…

yeah I am with you guys.. I didn't want to call the seller out but i hope the new owner is happy. If I were going to purchase i would have asked for a pic of the underside of the bottom bracket, it should say made in USA and have DBR as the first few numbers of the SN. And yeah have the seller stick a magnet to it

My neighbor owns a steel DB with the 'Axis TT' logos on them, too. I did the magnet test just to verify, but it clearly had steel tig welds. Seems odd, but it looks like there's more than one of them out there.

The inside of the b/b is red as well.

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weird PeteC.. what color was it painted?

the decals on this bike are on top of the paint so it could have been applied after the bike was purchased. The seat post clamp is one that diamondback typically used.. if it weren't for the cage boss and the curved cross bars i would just assume it's a steel axis with the wrong stickers. But the 3 mid 90s DB frames i have all have straight cross bars on the stays and none have any cage bosses.

Re:

You can tell a steel frame so easilly even just by looking at the dropouts. There is no mistaking this for a titanium frame... Now you need to id it because you dont really know what it is, but it doesnt look bad in red. Maybe resticker it?

Re: Re:

frantik":y2oqtnsx said:

weird PeteC.. what color was it painted?

the decals on this bike are on top of the paint so it could have been applied after the bike was purchased. The seat post clamp is one that diamondback typically used.. if it weren't for the cage boss and the curved cross bars i would just assume it's a steel axis with the wrong stickers. But the 3 mid 90s DB frames i have all have straight cross bars on the stays and none have any cage bosses.

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It's pearl white. Lovely frame. Just not ti.

Re: Re:

SEANSTEPHENS":1lhmympe said:

You can tell a steel frame so easilly even just by looking at the dropouts. There is no mistaking this for a titanium frame... Now you need to id it because you dont really know what it is, but it doesnt look bad in red. Maybe resticker it?

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it's not mine, i just noticed the stickers on the bike and thought it looked odd.