Jake Rusby has been busy: His workshop wall is filled with the diagrams of customer’s frames that need to be out of the door before Christmas, and this green road bike with spotted tails is one that has just been completed.
All Rusby Cycles are painted in-house, which is a service that was offered by most traditional frame building workshops. Modern builders who do so are to be commended for providing this option, on top of their ability to produce world-class frames.
The owner of this Rusby, Tom, is a designer, and he already had an idea about how he wanted his frame to look. Tom and Jake worked together to refine the design to really show off the frame and the enable it to stand out from the crowd.
“I came up with the polka dot rear triangle and the fade,” Jake says, “which fitted nicely with the aim of the bike (and with lots of my bikes) — something that looks serious and fast but also with a fun/playful look to it.
The forks were left with their carbon finish to match the rims and the seat post. “The extra seatstay bridge is purely aesthetic and I think it’s a nice little detail that offsets the symmetry on the rest of the bike,” Jake continues. “I’ve always liked this part of a bike frame, partly because it’s something the person on your wheel can look at.
The asymmetrical seat stay bridge is, like the paint, one of the reasons that sets a custom bike apart from the mundane. Tom should have plenty of inspiration to keep his Rusby at the front of the pack.