Local hero Mark wanted an all-weather commuter that would keep him and his scrubs clean. So right off the bat we’re thinking belt drive, internal hub, full fenders, disc brakes… and he had his heart set on the Sturmey-Archer 5 speed, seen here in rare disc version. We decided on Paragon sliding dropouts to make belt tensioning easy – but then the question was how to set it apart from the typical tig welded commuter. The first thing we did was put together a unique tube set – a variety of shaped Columbus Zona tubes that had a sort of faux-aero “coffin” profile. This was a purely aesthetic decision, we liked the flat planes and wanted to come up with a paint scheme to play off that. And yes, they were fun to miter.

And about that paint. The orange is a candy flake that needed 6 coats (as opposed to a more typical 2 or 3) to cover properly, but in the sun it’s deep like the ocean. Lots of fun pinstriping along the creases of that crazy tubing.

And here are some shots of the mitered tubes:

I also repainted a Gitane which had been languishing under a thick blanket of powder coat:

The fork had a bent steerer so I was also charged with building a replacement. The great thing was that I could get a Newvex crown from Richard Sachs that would nicely compliment the frame’s Nervex lugs, and of course we’re all about the continental bend to the fork:

Next: Sabine’s road beauty and some internal hub retrofits. And, more belt drive!

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