Hilary’s chartreuse mixte commuter

As with any first, this bike needed to be special, distinct, and it needed to set the bar of the future Chapman Cycles. It was designed to be a commuter bike for my wife, Hilary, to get around town. Some of the details that I chose to do on this bike included the “whale tail” theme throughout (seat tube sleeves, head tube rings, and stainless chainstay protector), internal cable routing, and René Herse style lateral stay attachment to the top tube. The headbadge was designed by Josie Morway and manufactured right here in Providence, RI by Hookfast. There are no decals on the frame, only paint. Accurate registration was required to get the Columbus dove logo (it is SL tubing) and Chapman Cycles down tube logo to come out properly. The brake levers were cut down for smaller hands, re-shaped, polished, and then re-anodized. The Dura-Ace center pull brakes also received the same treatment as they came very rough from the factory. They were then retrofitted with some Dia-Tech BMX adjusting hardware and springs for easy set up. The Shimano Ultegra 10 speed rear derailleur was dismantled and the black cage was polished silver to complement the rest of the bike’s silver components. The Campagnolo dropouts were used for the real estate available for the lateral stay attachment. Unfortunately, because Campy dropouts don’t contribute to good fender lines, they were heavily modified so the wheel could slip in and out and still have good fender spacing. The dropout adjusting screws were also custom made from stainless bolts and modified acorn nuts. I later built a rack for this bike so it’s actually useful for Hilary’s commuting but did not have it done before showing it at the Classic Rendezvous weekend in May of 2011 in Greensboro, NC. Thanks to Ken Toda for taking such fine pictures at the event.

I get to see this bike every day as it’s here at our home and I’m next to Hilary a lot of the time’s she’s riding it. I’m happy with the way it came out but it made me realize that there’s so much more to building a frame than just tactfully connecting a bunch of tubes. By visualizing the bike as a whole, I can see details that need to be focused upon and where things might be getting too busy. This bike definitely rode that fine line.

See the full slideshow of pictures.