cruiser revolution

By Ed Vandermolen

Even though there seems to be an almost endless supply of color options these days (for both bikes and components) sometimes you run into a situation where, for whatever reason, your preferred color  is not offered as an option by the manufacturer.

What’s a rider to do?

For the enterprising sort, this is their opportunity to customize their ride and get the work done to make their bike something that really stands out from the crowd. Whether it’s rawing out a frame or getting a custom color, this is where a rider’s individuality can really shine.

I’ve come across a couple examples of this lately that really caught my eye.

The first one is Nic Galvan’s custom candy-apple red Sunday Model-C.  I spotted this from a distance at Austin’s 9th street trails and thought at first it might be a Trans-Red S&M Dirt Bike.  Upon closer inspection, and chatting with Nic, I learned that he had it custom painted. The picture doesn’t do it justice but this bike looked so cool!  A headturner for sure!

The second is Jesse Klein’s DK Professional V2 24. (Jesse actually works at DK so it’s kinda cool that he’s still looking for ways to add some “extra cool” to his rides.)

In addition to going for a custom yellow color, Jesse cut some vinyl to make some one-off DK logos, gave it a quick hit with a sandblaster, then some powder coat to essentially “brand” his bicycle (vs. the traditional frame stickers). You can read a bit more about the process in this thread on BMXMuseum. It looks so trick!

Here’s a shot of the complete bike.

Pretty stoked on these rides.

Hope to see more of this kind of customization in the future!