Scary Face Dude

AKA "The Horned One". Custom recover on a worn out and damaged Turbo for Dan of Collingwood. Dan provided the artwork and I provided the material (100% kangaroo leather) and the technique (raised emboss).

Northside CX Swift

Another swift Fizik Arione for Northside Wheelers: CX model: Black kangaroo leather.

Leather Treatment

Dan's heavy old beast (not sure what it is) with old school flip flop system and steel everything came in for some Busyman leather treatment. The Australian Bell saddle had seen better days, the leather had become so rigid that it had torn through releasing some of the rivets. So I've done what I could to restore it with moulded leather reinforcement glued underneath, heavy duty stitching around the tears and a new set of copper rivets. We decided to lace the skirt of the saddle in order to restore it to something more like the original shape and it's been well and truly moisturised with Proofide, olive oil and Gilles Berthoud's "Special Grease for Leather Saddles?".

And the bars were treated to some wrapping in 2mm vegetable tanned cow hide, moulded and stitched on. This should now age and patina very gracefully taking on a tan from the sunlight, dirt and oils form everyday use. And a little bit of hidden branding too.....

More Fluoro

And this fluoro highlighted tape for this Parlee at The Cycling Edge.

Fluoro Kangaroo

The fluoro orange kangaroo skin was a great find. This SLR Classic Gel Flow features ordered perforations backed with a bright blue. A belated addition for this Parlee at Cycling Edge.

Kumo Cycles' Rolling Clouds

I just sent this Selle San Marco Rolls recovery off to Keith at Kumo Cycles. The motif is adapted from his head badge cloud with my decorative perforated contribution. The shape of the cloud has worked out really well with the shape of the saddle, overall I'm really pleased with the sharp graphic quality of the outcome. It will be adoring this frame in the near future.

Cars and Saddles II: Joachims Photos

Busyman underside detail

Bonus matching bill-fold wallet

Golden Honey

Perforated and backed with white leather

A set of fancy perforated toe straps and matching bar tape for Mark at Ventus Custom Cycles. Custom dyed to match a Brooks honey saddle, hand skived, perforated and stitched. Maybe we'll see this at NHABS 2012.

Look! Busyman Tape!

Look, today the stars aligned and we finally had a chance to wrap Chris' new bar tape.

Neil Fizik Aliante: Subtle

Very subtle needle perforations

Happy birthday to Neil

Going on his really nice new Cherubim frame.

Red Backed, Red Stitched

Custom bar tape for Chris. Just waiting for a convenient time to wrap his bars. Skived edges for smooth wrapping transition, red stitching for detail, perforations for grip with red backing for both detail and extra cushion.

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