Paint My Ride

Painting a bike frame is a pain in the neck. An open expanse of tubing ensures the bulk of the paint goes into the air and not on the frame. And there are lots of sneaky little cracks and crevices that resist being painted. Despite the trouble, I've had at least a dozen frames repainted. Some by myself, two powder-coated by R.W. Little, and several painted by the all-time master of bicycle painting,  JB Bicycle Refinishing.

I believe a white Olmo was the first frame I had powder coated. I sold it on to my brother Dan back in the early Seventies. It wasn't a perfect paint job but it was durable. And very shiny. Then I did a Bianchi because I couldn't stand the "dentist office green" paint that was standard on those bikes. A favorite Italian color, you might see it nowadays on a Vespa or Fiat 500.

(photo from the web)

Here's my tandem frame fresh out of the box but in its original paint, with decals saying Cycles California. The frame maker was Dana Fenimore, a substance-addled craftsman who put off our increasingly urgent calls of "Where are the frames?" with an unforgettable reply: "At this point, basic psychological survival is my primary concern!"

There were some flaws when my frame finally came in, so JB decided to do to repaint everything. It came out a bit lighter and brighter than the original coat. I can tell this is the original photo because the bike is still wearing its Cycles California decals on the bottom tube. They were removed for the repaint job and never replaced.

Notice on the photo below how the rear rack appears a bit darker than the frame? It has the original paint. Either I forgot to get JB to paint the racks, or he told me to forget it! He repainted this frame as a favor to me, otherwise it might have cost as much the price of building the frame. (Dana wasn't a very saavy businessman).

The Raleigh International Touring used to be brown too. In a fit of enthusiasm, I took it to RW Little's shop, had the paint blasted off, and replaced with a bright red powder coating. It looked great! I know that I took this photo about the time we bought our first house, in 1976 or 1977. I might have sold this bike to my brother too - I can't remember.

The Red Raleigh was around for a few years, then I built my Platano tourer to replace it. Here's a period photo in the same back yard. Nice reflectors!

And here it is today, nearly 40 years later, for comparison. I guess I'll have to track down those racks and lights and load it up again.

Once we were a two-Raleigh family. In the shot below, you see my wife's Raleigh Professional. I bought it from Ken and Teresa, who were migrating from English bikes to Italian. This was formerly Teresa's bike. It had very trick Campagnolo lightweight stuff on it. A bit much for commuting to work, really. Many years later Ken taught me watch-making and I bought his watch business. (Do you see neighbor Ron's 70 1/2 Camaro Z-28 in the background?)

A bit later, Laurie decided she wanted her bike to feel fresh and new. So we took it over to JB and had him apply a spiffy purple and white paint job. It's now about 33 years old. She still rides this bike - in fact you saw her riding it in an earlier post called Look Around You.