Copper head

This has been a long time coming and it's not even close to being finished.

The seed was planted back in 2006.

Danger - High Voltage!

Inspiration

Many moons again I bought a Paconi track frame made with Reynolds Speedstream tubing. I had a Speedstream funny bike previously. Yes, it looked cool, but it was an absolute handful to ride in traffic as pictured. I always had a knack of puncturing when the heat was on and be juggling jobs, and tubular glue at the same time. I remember there was a few couriers in London riding funny bikes, and one particular courier could often be found gleaming past the Duke of York on the back wheel in a display of pure class. It was egg shell blue.

I bought a standard 700c track frame a year later and dropped by to see Turbo to show him it. Once glance and he had to have it. I can't recall what the issue was with the original fork, or if it even came with one. Turbo went to Paconi and had a fork made for it. Instead of paint, or chrome he chose copper. It needed some small modification and back then a lot of these mods took place in the GONZ LAB to the ambience of Iron Maiden.

Finally it was rolling on Dura Ace hubs with Hoshi bladed spokes.

Turbo gave me an insight into the plating process. It's chemically complex, hazardous and time consuming. Here's an overview.

Ace's High

In 2004 I visited Ace Cycles in Vancouver. I got a delivery out to that part of town, far beyond any standard pushbike boundary and stuck my head in on the way back to base. High up on the shelves were some vintage Cinelli's, Colnago's, and Holdsworths. To cut a long post short, hours later I was still shooting the breeze with Lorne 'Ace' Atkinson about his time importing Colnago's. Cinelli's and Holdsworth's and he showed me his unridden gold plated Colnago. It was stored in a cupboard, but even in dim light the gold was apparent - and brilliant.

This is that bike.

Nearly a year ago I bought a Colnago Super out of Italy with a full pantographed Super Record gruppo. The stars were aligning, and my inspiration was now taking shape.

So far, so good.

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