It's great when you can dance at the intersection of many good things. You all know that we get to play with bikes here at IF, and nothing goes better with bikes than good music. One of my best friends happens to be an accomplished musician. Roger
Clyne was the front man for the successful late 90's band the Refreshments, and has seen continued success as an independent music pioneer for over a decade, producing records and touring as
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. Roger walked away from the major label side of the music business to do things on his own terms, and he inspired me to do the same by leaving my executive career to join Indy Fab.
As repayment for the encouragement, I wanted to make him a bike that reflected his personality and lifestyle. Roger lives in Arizona and often finds himself south of the Mexican border... sailing, fishing, writing music and frequenting the local
cantina by the sea in
Cholla Bay. The roads are rough, but the living is easy.
The perfect bike for
Cholla Bay, or life in and out of a touring bus? A ti Planet Cross, complete with a side mounted, water-proof guitar case and a paint scheme inspired by his
first album.
The man himself was in town last week to play a Boston Harbor booze cruise gig, so we took the opportunity to shoot a few photos. No stranger to the camera, he could hardly contain himself when he saw the steed in person.
She's a full on cross racing thoroughbred, despite her primary role as a
cantina cruiser and tour stop
de-compression tool. Shot-
peened 3-2.5 titanium, Alpha Q carbon
CX-20 cross fork,
SRAM Rival
drivetrain, and
Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels, but a few aesthetic nods to go along with the WWII airplane theme inspired by the Refreshment's first album cover; brown leather Brooks bar tape and B-17 saddle (hey, the B-17 was a WWII bomber, coincidence?).
The guitar case features a matching paint scheme, complete with
girly nose-art, "kill" symbols for each of Roger's Refreshments and Peacemakers albums, and a USAF logo that replaces the star with the Peacemakers glyph symbol.
Tyler dug deep into his special ops bag of tricks to fabricate this custom titanium fixture which mounts the guitar case securely to the bike. He even incorporated an S&S coupler to quickly disconnect the fixture.
The sterling silver
headbadge looks
resplendent against the
Corsa red head tube paint . Phil and Paul keep using that word
resplendent in their coverage of the Tour
de France, so I thought that I'd slide it in here.
Nothing like being the captain of your own ship.
Ride it well, amigo...
Don't forget to
support your favorite indie artists. Music makes the wheels go around.
Monday morning... As the coffee settles into my bloodstream and the bleary world comes into focus I have a vision. A vision of a bad-ass shotpeened titanium cyclocross bike!
Decked out with a SRAM Rival gruppo, Chris King headset and some handbuilt wheels with Chris King hubs and Mavic OpenPro hoops.
The stock hoods were replaced with some green Hudz.
Top tube cable routing is key for cyclocross bikes, it keeps all of the cables and cable stops out of the way when shouldering the bike.
A close look at the shotpeened surface reveals some sweet welds.
On this bike we used some dual-purpose dropouts called "High School Dropouts". They make it so you can run the bike as a singlespeed or with gears.
And, once again, it's topped off with some sterling silver up on the grill.
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