Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Amid the flurry of this year’s Philly Bike Expo, one exceptional builder we wanted to visit but didn’t make it to is Kristofer Henry of 44 Bikes in New Hampshire. He had a couple of jaw-dropping titanium mountain bikes on display, and we checked in with him after the show for details. See them both here…
Some of the finest mountain bikes on display at the 2025 Philly Bike Expo last weekend came from 44 Bikes’ builder Kristofer Henry of Lyndeborough, New Hampshire. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get to him, but his show builds were among the most eye-catching and capable rigs in Philadelphia. We followed up with him in the days after the event to learn more about the two complete MTBs that were on display in booth number 2406. Find details on titanium Snakedriver and Marauder SS with fresh photos from Kristofer below.
44 Bikes Ti Marauder SS
Kristofer brought his personal hardtail, the 44 Bikes Marauder Ti. It’s a dedicated singlespeed, which means no rear derailleur cable routing. It shares geometry with the stock steel Marauder and is a size large. The frame features a custom in-house-designed titanium yoke printed in the US by SILCA. It has Paragon fittings throughout, cable routing runs over the downtube, and it fits up to a 200mm dropper post thanks to the external water bottle studs.
The Marauder Ti is equipped with a 140mm FOX 34 fork and has a 66° headtube, a 75° effective seat tube (its face is actually 73°) for a comfy pedaling position, a 63.5mm bottom bracket drop for carefree cornering, and 429mm chainstays when slammed. As pictured, they’re about 431mm tensioned with a 32 x 20T combination. The complete large build weighs right around 25 pounds. Kristofer calls it a “grounded, low-slung classic New England hardtail with an eye to straightforward, aggressive simplicity.” The custom topcap was made by Joe at Cobra Framebuilding, and it sounds like there are more on the way.
Describing the Marauder Ti in more detail, Kristofer told us, “This one’s inspired by my BMX roots and early days of mountain biking repackaged into a modern hardtail. It’s basically a big BMX bike for deep woods riding. It climbs as well as it descends and can jib everything in between. This is a mountain bike first, so every detail is maximized for mountain biking. It can be bikepacked on, of course, but most custom clients have a laundry list of requests for mounts, so that build is typically very unique and specific to clients’ requests.”
44 Bikes Ti Snakedriver
The other complete mountain bike showing at the 44 Bikes booth was a gorgeous full-suspension Snakedriver with a titanium front triangle and a steel swingarm. It shares all the same geometry as the forthcoming stock steel Snakedriver, which is expected to launch later this year or in early 2026 after a lengthy development and testing period that started in 2019.
This one-off Ti/steel Snakedriver has a 140mm fork and 120mm of rear travel thanks to a flex pivot designed by Kristofer. It features a 3D-printed 15-5 stainless yoke, a seatstay clevis by RAM3D in New Zealand, and the main pivot was printed by SILCA. Like the Marauder, the Snakedriver has over-downtube cable routing. It’ll clear a 200mm dropper on L and XL frames, 175mm on mediums, and 160mm on small. Tire clearance is about 29 x 2.6″. The build shown here weighs a little under 30 pounds and has an XTR drivetrain and brakes, Race Face Turbine cranks, Wolf Tooth Ripsaw pedals, White Industry headset, a Fox 36 fork and Transfer post, and I9 torch hubs laced to NOX Farlow rims.
As for geometry, the frame sports a 65° headtube, 76° seattube, 25mm bottom bracket drop, and 440mm chainstays. In Krisofer’s words, “The Snakedriver is meant for anywhere from long days in the saddle or short after-work jib-fests. Basically, I wanted a bike that’s not too big, isn’t awash in travel, punches above its weight, is easily maintainable thanks to common hardware throughout, and is just a fast and fun trail bike. It’s everything you need and not anything more.”
You can follow along with Kristofer on Instagram and find complete details and ordering information about all of his models over at 44Bikes.com.
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