THE COLOR SCHEME
I've bought an old 1984 Suzuki SJ413 / Samurai a couple years ago. I've had lots of times driving it out on a sunny day, looking over the engine hood and just thinking on how special it's turquoise color is. Even thought it really is a tiny car, it nicely fits 2 bikes hung out of the back. Beside the unique color it also has a bunch of graphic elements on the chassis that translated really well into a matching paint job. After coming up with a quick mockup, there was no way I was not gonna do this.Polished chrome parts to match the cars side mirrors, logos influenced by the red side graphics and the SJ emblems, white fabric seatstay covers to fit the canopy vibe, custom color matched wheels, even the saddle matches the cars interior - what a treat.
THE CREATION
Lots of love to detail went into this from then on. Cutting vinyl stencils, hand polishing parts of the frame / fork crown, painting the 4 different color layers and sewing seatstay covers with heatprints to match the cars canopy, machining a custom crankstopper - definitely put a fair amount of time into creating this and loved the process.Fun fact: the Suzuki now I missing a bolt, which Industry Nine used to color match the spokes and stem in their custom anodising process.
THE PRODUCTION
Already having documented the lead up process well and then finally having the bike build, I wanted to showcase it accordingly. I've had this idea of an oldschool slideshow matching the timeless process of building this bike. Put some thoughts into a scene that could establish it well, packed some camera gear and headed out to shoot the main scene. I've used a small beamer to project the slideshow onto my granddad's old projector canvas. Since I needed it to be quite dark for the projection to be bright enough, I used a drone with a headtorch attached to get some additional lighting on the truck and slopebike.
' BIKECHECK '
Frame: Trek Ticket S
Shock: Rockshox Super Deluxe, 240 PSI, Custom Tune, 190×45
Fork: Rockshox Pike DJ 100mm, 150 PSI, 2 Tokens, Mid Rebound, Mid Compression
Wheels: Industry Nine - Hydra - DirtJump 305, custom anodising
Bar: Chromag OSX35 25mm, cut to 740mm
Stem: Industry Nine A318 custom anodising
Grips: Chromag Wax
Brake: Trickstuff Dirretissima
Gyro: Trickstuff Trixer
Saddle: Chromag Overture LDT
Cranks: Cane Creek eWings Titanium 170mm
Chainring: Chromag Sequence 32T
Pedals: Chromag Pressure
Chain Tensioner: SB1 Components G3C
Chain: Sram PC-XX1
Tires: Kenda Booster Pro 60 PSI
Color:1984 Suzuki 27G SAMOA TURQUOISE Metallic
THANKS TO
everyone cool person involved helping me get this special build going. Simon Grässle for letting me use the lathe in his workshop. The Distillery for some of the camera equipment. Trek Bicylces for the trust and for giving me the all the freedom to my wild ideas.Industry Nine for jumping on this idea with the custom anodising - been awesome working together on such a creative basis.
Kenda, Trickstuff, Chromag for all the additional parts.
loving this, lets go ride it now. cheers.