Club Racer :: EFM :: Life

I.F. employee Shawn "E.F.M." Estes has built himself a new Club Racer out of Columbus Life tubing. This frame features a secret bottle opener, safety oriented paint scheme and a painted to match pump.



Shawn opted to go with a single chainring up front, for now...


The parts consist of a blend of new and old robust componentry destined to be slayed by the long dark and salty winter commutes back and fourth between Somerville and Burlington.

This will be his new rainy day friend. All it needs is a name...

- t.e

Steel 29'er :: Best Wedding Present Ever

My good friends Jon Frederick and Kathryn Grant got married this past weekend. Congrats you two! It was a beautiful weekend.

Katie asked me a few months ago about having us build a custom IF for Jon as a wedding present. Jon's been lusting after an IF for years, and developed a habit of describing his dream paint job to me. His best idea yet: a toned-down Gulf Racing paint scheme based on a Tag Monaco watch.

Asymmetric stripes. Orange on one side...

Baby blue on the other.

We pulled off some super secret spy missions to get the fit just right. Katie "lost" the keys to their garage twice so I could get a close look at his other bikes.

Groomsman and IF Racer, Todd Yezefski, gave extra feedback about Jon's fit on his current mountain bike. We turned that into a frame design and left the steerer and cables a little long to give room for fine tuning.

IF crown "number plate".

Katie presented the bike to Jon on Friday night. Jon was literally speechless. It's pretty great when a surprise really works.

Jon didn't let go of the bike for practically the rest of the night. Rubber donuts kept the paint safe. Blue zip-ties really tie the whole look together (nice!).

So much more fun than a watch.

Congratulations again, Jon and Katie. Here's to a wonderful life together. Cin cin.

- k.w.

Shop View :: Dawn :: 2010

- t.e.

Shop View :: Dusk :: 2010

- t.e.

Corvid :: Ed Viesturs

Many of our customers are athletes in sports other than cycling, but use cycling as a key part of their training regimen.

Ed Viesturs is one of those. A world class athlete and a good friend, he is the first American to summit all 14 of the world's tallest peaks without the use of supplemental oxygen. Ed is also an environmentalist, a talented speaker, author, guide, devoted father and husband, and game enough to guide my motley crew up Mount Rainier a few years ago, so I had to repay the favor and build him a bike worthy of his talent.


We tinted the carbon on his Corvid blue, Ed's favorite color, probably because he has spent so much time in true blue skies above 26,000 feet.

Ed is no stranger to great gear, providing design input to numerous equipment makers including First Ascent, so when he sent me a note saying that, "this was the coolest thing that he'd ever received", I knew that we'd hit the mark.
Look for Ed's interview in the December issue of Bicycling magazine, where he talks about the role that cycling plays in his training, and grab a copy of his latest book, K2, Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain.

g.s.

03 TiCJ :: Boss Repaint :: Yatsugatake

This 2003 Titanium Crown Jewel came back for a new paint job.

This frameset features the colors: 2011 Boss Blue, Vanilla Shake and Black with exposed shotpeened titanium rear end.

At this point they thought it would be a good idea to upgrade their fork to a new ENVE 2.0, painted to match. (good idea)

It still has the original seat collar...

... and the original Steling Silver headbadge with 7+ year old patina.

Good as new... maybe better.

- t.e.

SSWC10NZ :: NB :: IF M498's

The Steel Deluxe Singlespeed frameset behind this box has a long journey ahead of it.

It is on it's way to New Zealand for the 2010 Singlespeed World Championships via our fine dealer in Australia Cycling Edge.


The frame features slider dropouts and a painted to match Niner carbon fork.

The team paint scheme is a little hard to see in this picture because of those custom IF/New Balance sneakers that are in the way.

Okay, enough teasing... Here is the skinny: Friend of the family and Grassroots racer Greg "The Leg" Montello arranged a special project for his co-worker, Manufacturing Engineer Shaina Damm, at New Balance: a special pair of M498 in IF colors and graphics.

No more will probably ever be made, but we thought we would share just the same.

(we still aren't totally sure why they made them...)

- t.e.