Last week, United sent over a new video of pro team rider Alex Valentino to promote the release of his new signature color way (satin blood red) of the United Dinero frame and his new signature top load stem. The Dinero frame is United's brand new street frame, which features investment cast dropouts that create stronger, smoother and more aesthetically pleasing weld lines. After watching the edit (which features cleared music), we reached out to United's Ian Morris and Dean Hearne to discuss the creation of the new Dinero frame.

XGames.com: What prompted you guys to do a signature frame color way and stem with Alex Valentino?
United: Alex has been part of United for a long time now, pretty much since day one. He is the perfect example of progression through the ranks on our team, starting out riding for an international distributor, and then progressing onto the full pro team as his relationship developed with us and the other team riders. Working on him with a signature product was the next natural step. With the frame, we always wanted the Dinero to be our high-end team frame that was not specifically one person's signature, but something we could offer all our riders the chance to put their stamp on with a signature colorway. The stem was just one of those products that suited Alex and worked out, we wanted to develop a top load stem -- he likes top load stems, and liked the way this one rode and looked.

Ashley Charles has a signature Dinero colorway as well, how much input did Alex and Ashley have in the design process of the Dinero frame?
The Dinero frame came about as a follow on our Dinero forks, and it's a product that we felt our frame line was lacking -- between all of our signature frames. We wanted this frame to offer something different to the rest of our line up, with it's ultra street-based geometry and a lot of high end features such as invest cast dropouts, head tube engraving etc. Ashley and Alex were the first two riders that we gave frames to for testing and to see how they got on with them. It made sense as their riding styles are pretty different and we wanted to check the frame worked for all aspects of riding, even though the geometry was pretty street/tech based. So the frame is something we worked on and we then gave the riders free reign to choose their own colorways and used their feedback from testing to make some little tweaks and improvements.

Why is it called the Dinero frame?
Dinero, well, for one it sounds good and has good letters graphically. It is Spanish for money, and considering that these products are the top of the range in our line up and use some more advanced and technical features, it just seemed to work. As well with Dinero meaning money, the riders get a nice little royalty from the sales on their chosen colorways.

What was the most challenging part about designing the Dinero?
The dropouts were really the only challenging part. We had done the dropouts on the forks, and it took us a long time to finalize the design for the frame. There is so much that can be done when invest casting a part, but to stay true to the aesthetics of our products, we didn't want to go overboard and create something that looked more at home on a spaceship. So it was a fine line making sure we created something that looked a little different and cleaner to a traditional welded dropout, which remained strong and didn't look weird.

Valentino's Dinero frame and signature top load stem is available from United.