A while back, we started sending our bikes to Spectrum Powderworks in Colorado Springs. We had a bunch of reasons: Powder is a little more environmentally friendly than liquid paint, the bikes showed up when they said they would, and most importantly, the bikes looked absolutely fantastic.
So after a couple of bad scratches, we decided to send the Boy Bike in for paint version 2. Repainting meant that I would be without my favorite bike for a couple of weeks, but it also meant that I could add a couple things to my original order: braze-ons for fenders and all the decals that didn’t exist back then. When it came back this cool grey, I also decided to splurge on some Full Wood Fenders, which I am absolutely in love with.
Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.
Boy Bike Redux, or, perhaps now, the Boy-O-Boy Bike…!
The new paint is lovely though I loved the previous blue just as much…you both have a true eye for hues), the fenders, divine. It’s funny that I’m reading this now, but I just finished up building (with a ton of help from my LBS here in Park Slope) two bikes that officially replaced, at long damn last, a pair of bikes stolen last summer, which left me in a serious funk for a while. One is a go-fast machine with a mix of old-school (lovely lugged steel frame/fork, DT shifters) and not-quite-so-old-school (Ritchey Aero OCR wheels, 9-speed Shimano Ultegra drivetrain), and it’s both pretty and pretty fast. The other bike is more along the lines of the Boy Bike, save for one major detail: somehow, I managed to find a NOS Sachs “Torpedo” two-speed coaster-brake hub, nine years ago. Yes, it took THIS long to build this, but I love it:
http://tinyurl.com/3b7qvw
And I’m happy. Elemental without the hair-shirt theatrics fixed-gear bikes seem to engender (at least here in NYC). Between this and the other new bike, I can feel the extra pounds I’ve taken on in the interim (about 20) melt away gradually with each ride.
Looking at your revised ride again proves that, while love can’t be bought, it can quite possibly be welded.
Happy riding.
- Barrett