My uncle announced ahead of his 62nd birthday that he’d be riding the French Alps this coming September and that he’d be taking the bike I built for him three years ago to do it. This is the fulfillment of a decades old dream for him, and an honor for me that he’d choose his Budd Bike Works to ride some of the same storied passes that had been battled over by the heroes of the Tour De France. Anyway his initial paint job was showing some signs of wear and possibly a poor pre-treat from the powder coater at this point so the bike came in for a re-finish. With the paint stripped I couldn’t help but try to spiff up some of my earlier work to impress the Europeans on the climbs and nearly paid a high price for the vanity when I knocked loose a threaded fitting inside the frame. It took a good bit of sweat and ingenuity to keep this from being a major plastic surgery disaster.
The new tinted clear powder coat is an antique bronze that looks amazing with the substrate visible beneath, as per usual my photography underwhelms but I hope he likes it when he sees it. I’m excited for his trip and will be following his preparation for it when he re-fires his blog at Old Man Up the Mountain. One of the joys of building bikes for folks one at a time with hand tools is that I put enough of myself into them that it feels like part of me gets to go on all the eventual adventures that the bikes do, I guess that is also why I can be a bit of a nag to customers that aren’t riding their BBWs.
