Cars and Saddles

I just finished this set of saddle and tape for Joachim over in Austin, Texas. I really love the leather on this one, it's a vegetable tanned cow skin and comes complete with scars and all. It has a real authentic leather quality to it and with use it will polish up and deepen in colour. A pleasure working with Joachim, he provided me with a really clear design brief, including some very nice sketches, and left plenty of room for my own ideas. As already seen on the Serotta Forum .

Christmas Bike: Malvern Star

That's the saddle I restored a couple of weeks ago. It's a Christmas bike so only posted now, post Christmas. A really cute Malvern Star, 24"step through restored by Fly in Horsham for his girlfriend. He repainted the frame, fenders and chain guard, had other parts re-chromed, got some wheels with a lot of spokes and asked me to match the saddle to the leather grips. Looking forward to seeing more of Fly's projects.

Malvern Star: Step Through

Panelled, quilted and piped; a play on the classic quilted look saddle. The original was vinyl with fake embossed quilting. Now recovered in kid skin with real stitched quilting. An interesting project, quite a different beast to the modern sports saddle and requiring a modified set of techniques. Luckily we managed to find a leather that almost perfectly matches the grips Richard "Fly" sourced online. Red frame with new paint and fenders painted up to match the leather work. Looking forward to viewing the final product.

Malvern Star: 5 Star

Only one photo worked out worked out for this shoot. Richard is giving a complete overhaul refurbish on a Malvern Star 5 Star. He had the bars nickel plated, polished up the ornate stem and had me apply this perforated leather bar wrap. Black on black with baseball style stitching and graduating perforation size. A new kind of classic.

JVG Guitar Method

Jonnie von Goes of JVG Radio Method is about to receive this little customised Turbo. Listen to the show on Three Tripple RRR at 2pm on Sundays. Nice one, thanks Jed.

LOVE

Northside Swift

Customised Fizik Arione for Malachi at Northside Wheelers. More Northside stuff coming soon. Big thanks to Gayle in NZ.

Baum: Venom: Tundra: Busy Man

Just received the picture of Rob's new Baum for which I did the saddle recover and bar tape. Really special bike.

Buffalo: Kangaroo: Moser

A new saddle - tape combo for Andy's Moser refurbishment. Dan at Shifter Bikes is doing the mechanical stuff and Andy asked me to do the leather trims. Being born in the Chinese year of the ox is the reasoning behind the embossed buffalo skull motif. Kangaroo skin on the saddle and cow hide for the tape which is split down the middle and stitched through to a red backing. Hand skived and perforated.

Busyman!

Some blatant branding for Dick Thikens, aka Ben.

Flite Max: Tubular Titanium

Basic black recover for Duncan's favourite saddle. Going on his twelve year old Independent Fabrication mountain bike.

Flite: Casino: Cannondale Green

A gift for Nigel from the folks at Lonely Planet. Auto upholstery grade leather, white with Liquigas apple green underlay behind the perforations.

Gervase: SLR Carbon

Custom recovered SLR carbon saddle for Tim over in Western Australia for his second hand made wooden bike. I am really fond of this natural kangaroo skin dyed to a deep chocolate brown.

Venom Green Fizik Tundra

Matching set of saddle and tape for Rob's brand new custom built Baum Corretto. The frame is metallic black with venom green and the saddle is styled to match in black kangaroo with venom green underlay. All the best for your exams Rob.

Happy Anniversary Moose

The red stripe, inserted to pay homage to the original Fizik Arione, stops short to make way for the moose head motif. Happy anniversary Moose.

Dancing Braille: Double Straps and Leather Fizik

For Robert in Queensland - some pretty heavy duty double toe straps with pink perforations to match the Fizik Arione recover in black kangaroo with Braille perforations. The pink is something close to 'Rapha' pink and the saddle says something like "f#@k art just dance". A nice little set, must do a black kangaroo saddle for myself one of these days. My latest leather pieces are two kangaroo tails in black, they're more textured and tougher looking than the main part of the hide.

Basic Black: Luxury Kangaroo

Another basic SMP recover, this time in simple black, hand dyed kangaroo. It's a 'lively' leather with real character which will only get better with use. Dynamic is the model and Parlee Z3 is the bike.

Stitched Swift Swallow

White SMP Composit recover with a swift swallow motif hand embroidered on the seat. To match Bridie's custom painted frame. The jury is still out on the embroidery application, I expect a finer thread will deliver a more practical outcome.

Special Red Turbo

Before (how much nicer is Feride's photo, she has the eye)

As I've said before, I really like this worn old red Turbo, there was something special about it, the beauty of the worn leather. Not so functional though. The refurbished saddle has had some minor foam repairs and is now recovered in red kid skin. The owner's name subtly monogrammed around the back of the seat and the logo badges retouched with red enamel. Now off to NSW.