- SALLY’S TIG WELDED ROAD BIKE -

After many years of promising to build a bike for my wife, Sally, she finally has her very own Feather.

Sally only really had one criteria for me to follow - it had to look beautiful. In the year running up to building this bike, we went through many ideas for the paint starting with the idea of geometrics, then one day she spotted a plate by her favourite ceramicist and fell in love with the glazing. She sent the image to my painter, Jack, and he started playing around with techniques to replicate the glazing on the plate. He absolutely nailed it, it couldn’t be more perfect and Sally could not be happier with it. The graphics are applied using dyed blue silver leaf and features little personal touches such as our dogs names and a stainless steel love heart surprise hidden away on the brake side rear dropout.

The bike is built entirely from Columbus Spirit tubing and is built using TIG welding which is something I am now offering to customers. Big welding is among the things I was actually trained in but only ever built a few frames here and there using this option. Back when I started, I taught myself to fillet braze as I wanted to remove myself from what I did in the factories and do something new and different to me. However, over the last year or so I have been building more TIG welded frames for friends and have really been enjoying the process and so made the decision to introduce it as an option for custom builds.

Shimano’s brand new 105 Di2 groupset is the groupset of choice on this bike. Sally always struggled with gear changing on mechanical group sets due to having small hands and so loves the fact its now just a button to press for ultra quick shifting. Add to the fact Shimano’s hydraulic disc brakes are the smoothest action known to man, this bike has transformed Sally’s confidence on two wheels. Finished off with a Pro Vibe aluminium cockpit and rolling on Pacenti Forza-C wheels and a Chris King headset and BB, this bike ticks all the boxes for someone wanting an amazing bike without breaking the bank. OK, maybe if it had a slightly simpler paint job :-)