Velo Vert - French Mountain Bike magazine
The French-Australian All Mountain bike.
The story could start by “ once upon a time at Whistler…” and finish by “ they got married and had a lot of bicycles”. This story, is the story of Deubel Bicycles. A small company based in Sydney which hits the headlines for few months now.
Deubel, like Sébastien and Gisella Deubel, the French-Australian couple who started the project. The duo was passionate by mountain biking and fell in love at the Richie Schley course on the tracks of Whistler. Sébastien, experienced rider, used to race Mégavalanches and other endurance downhill races, polished his technical skills under the expert eyes of Mr Schley. His riding is fluid and committed, but instead of impressing his teacher of the day, he impressed Gisella. His French style and French accent quickly conquered the heart of the beautiful Aussie. “Gisella thought I was the coolest rider” admits Sébastien and said “Gisella was the craziest and happiest girl I had ever seen on a bike!”.
Few months after, the couple was united under the sun of Sydney. From their partnership and passion for mountain biking, a baby was born : Deubel Bicycles. Sébastien is the Mechanical Engineer (graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Applied Sciences in Paris, he worked 10 years as a professional mechanical engineer for top car manufacturers) and Gisella is the Sales and Marketing Director.
Sébastien had designed and built his own full suspended mountain bike when he was at the university. This time, the new Deubel is available after a year of intense testing on both, XC and DH Australian races. Called 2UP, referring to the gambling Australian game played on the Anzac day in the pubs, their first bike is an All-Mountain designed to tackle any gamble riders are ready to do. Climb, jump and descent. The 2UP has been studied to perform on every type of terrain. The versatility according to Deubel.
The frame is made with Easton EA6X aluminium tubes, has 152mm of rear travel, a 1.5” head tube and is CNC machined and TIG welded in Sydney. The RP23 boostvalve rear shock has been exclusively tuned by Fox Racing engineers. According to Sébastien “the frame receives interchangeable shock mounts and dropouts, allowing the adjustment of the head angle, the bottom bracket height, the chain stay length and the axle sizing depending on the terrains ridden”. The versatility pushed to its limits and apparently towards performances. “Our first patent pending consists on bringing more than 35% of additional torsional lateral resistance into the swingarm compared to our competitor’s designs, offering then a high level of pedalling efficiency and riding accuracy”. Interesting facts which let us think of an optimist future…
A quick question to Sébastien : What do you mean by “Australian Made” ? Sébastien : It’s simple, we only import the Easton tubes. All the manufacturing steps are made in Sydney. Am talking about the cutting of the tubes, the machining of the parts, the welding of the frames, the heat treatments and the painting. The expenses made in Australia allow us to show the “Australian made” label on our frames.