Having your friend build and design you a bike is pretty special; especially when it ends up in making what becomes not just any bike, but a total dream. Rob has been somewhat prolific this year and he shows no sign of slowing down in his production.
With the backing of Jam Cycling, we went ahead to start to build up what would become my perfect cyclocross racer/ all road tourer. Firstly we started by working on the geometry of the bike. I have quite a unique position which allowed us to really make the bike appear quite aggressive (for a cyclocross bike) whilst still following traditions of a longer wheelbase, wide clearance and a higher bottom bracket. The ideal geometry was tried and tested from a bike fit with James Thomas at Sigma Sports. The beauty of a custom bike is you can literally do what you like.
The spec of the bike is as follows:
- Custom Quirk Cycles frame painted by Cole Coatings
- Kinesis Tripster fork
- Verve Infocrank powermeter with Praxis Works chainrings
- Kogel ceramic BB and Jockey Wheels
- Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset
- Zipp 303 Tubs fitted with Vittoria Terreno Mix G+ tyres
- Fizik finishing kit
- Hope headset
- TRP Sypre cable brakes
The bike has been magestically painted by Cole Coatings (If you don't know them, check them out!) Wording from Cole Coatings:
'Inspired by modern NJS style paint and a taking cues from some high-end cars, this design features a 'top-down' (or a 'bottom-up'!) fade arranged in such a way that almost every tube has it's own gradient or 'colour junction'.
We've taken the customer's colour suggestions and gone one step further by utilising House of Kolor 'Kandy Basecoats'; specialist pearls which offer much the of depth and dynamics associated with traditional candy products but are a little more straightforward to apply. The Quirk and Columbus branding has been picked out in a flat black (an essential groundcoat colour for this type of paint) which is crisp and clean against the playful metallic effects in the blue and purple.
One final point of note that we wouldn't tend to mention is the sheen; a crisp, clean and lustrous gloss is something we aim for on every project... but the candy base colours are brought to life once under a well polished clearcoat.'
I think we can all agree, what Rob and Cole Coatings have produced is a complete work of art which I can't wait to smash around on some proper winter miles and at local CX races. Keep an eye out for her, shes pretty special.
Photos by the ever so talented Nikoo Hamzavi