It’s almost been two years since Firefly Bicycles first set up shop in Boston MA. During that time, a seemingly endless stream of perfectly tailored bikes, coupled with their striking, anodized graphics, have established the trio of Tyler Evans, Kevin Wolfson and Jamie Medeiros at the pinnacle of the American stainless and titanium custom frame scene.
Stefan Rohner is an Ibiza-based photographer whose great passion, aside from the camera, is cycling. He contracted a ti road frame from Firefly which had to travel a great distance around the world before it could take Stefan on journeys of his own. It was sent from Boston to German customs, where it was detained before Crema Cycles could install the Pressfit30 bottom bracket and Chris King headset.
It finally landed in Spain so Stefan could build it up. “My recent road bikes are carbon”, Stefan writes, “but I like the look of bare titanium. I’ve now discovered that ti has wonderful riding characteristics. It’s the best bike I’ve ridden. The large tube diameters, the 44mm head tube and the PF30 make a stiff and responsive frame, but at the same time it’s very comfortable. It ‘eats’ all the bumps in the road.
“The geometry is about the same as my Colnago C59, a slightly longer wheel base and more tire clearance to use it off road with larger tires (for Paris-Roubaix, for instance). The welds are beautiful, I don’t think you can get any better than that. The brown anodized skull on the seat tube is based on a design by Ryan Rhodes (thanks Ryan!!) for Fast Folks Cyclery.”
Special thanks to Stefan Rohner for the photography. Have a look at more of his work on his website.
