The last time I got a new bike, once it was finally built up, dialed, bars wrapped just so, it was well past midnight, into the wee hours of a sticky morning in August. I fell asleep on the living room couch, bike resting a few feet away, and woke up a few hours later for maybe the best, certainly the earliest, ride I’ve taken in a long time.
That new bike feeling. It’s just SO EXCITING.
And it’s that feeling we like to give people when they get their bikes back from Ruckus. Not just repaired, but beautifully restored. Sometimes improved upon, or even dramatically altered
This week a great example of a bike going home better than new was this Parlee Z-Zero. This particular repair stood out because the customer chose to have the entire frame repainted in a new color, rather than simply touching up the repair area.
The damage to the frame was on the seatstay: cracked and unrideable. The customer went into his local bike shop for advice, they properly diagnosed the issue and contacted us to do the repair. In this case, the bike shop did initial teardown and final rebuild so that we received only the frame. If you need a recommendation for a great shop in your area let us know! This is the simplest option for us, but we can always to do teardown and rebuild here for an additional fee.
As is sometimes the case, the structural carbon repair was the most straightforward part of this project. Dan worked his magic, removed the damage, laid up new unidirectional carbon, made the bike once again safe and rideable.
Choosing and executing a finish for the newly repaired frame was the bigger challenge.
We have all sorts of machines (BMO) the 3D printer, our large USGS prepreg oven, and Katniss Everclean the Roomba among them) that help us do our work here at Ruckus. But our humans remain our strongest asset. Graham is one of those humans and he’s the one here who takes care of the majority of communication with customers. From working through the initial shock of a broken frame, to making repair and finish decisions to arranging for final repair delivery, Graham is the one on the phone working through the details (and he’s usually managing to paint a top tube at the same time.)
And so the customer, his local bike shop and the folks at Parlee all worked together with Graham on making the final paint decision: Red. Straight up. With just a few subtle white graphics.
Bright red paint on a road bike frame. It’s far from a new concept, but when executed properly it can be incredible. Plus it’s well known fact that red is fast
It should be noted that “red” is a pretty broad category, encompassing hundreds of different colors, so we try to have an objective way to make sure customers know what to expect. We chose this particular red from Parlee’s stock colors. It’s is a good way to set and meet expectations about exactly which red we’re dealing with.
The final product was just as we’d hoped. A beautifully restored frame headed home for new bike day all over again.