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Check out the Spoon Customs 01 Sam Dunn hand-painted road bike

Made from Columbus Spirit steel, Spoon Customs’ first bike – from 2014 – features an amazing hand-painted finish

One of the most eye-catching bikes at the Bespoked Handmade Bicycle Show in Dresden, Germany, last weekend was this hand-painted model from Spoon Customs. Made from Columbus HSS Spirit steel tubing by Spoon founder Andy Carr and hand-painted by artist and illustrator Sam Dunn, it’s unique.

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Pics: Greenleaves Cycling/Rory Hitchens & Spoon Customs

> Check out the Project D, the coolest bike you’ll see this week 

This Spoon Customs Spoon 01 road bike – usually called ‘the Sam Dunn bike’ – isn’t new. In fact, Andy made it back in 2014 while learning to build frames by hand. It’s a prototype of the bike that was to become the Spoon Customs Izoard RR, with a compact geometry, rim brakes, and external cable routing.

The Columbus Spirit HSS (High Strength Shaped) is made from triple-butted Omnicrom alloy. The tubes are cold-drawn and seamless.

The fork is from Columbus too; it’s a carbon Futura with a tapered steerer.

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“The paintwork features a number of names and icons relevant to Sam, the artist, and Andy himself, with colleague Tony Corke, who did the fit, represented and a number of other nods to people involved—or just things that Sam and Andy shared and found they had in common whilst the work was being produced,” says Spoon Cycles.

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The design includes spoons and the Columbus logo, which might not surprise you, and also more unexpected elements like skulls, flowers, and eyeballs. There’s lacquer over the top.

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The head tube badge is hand-painted too…

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…as is the Zipp carbon stem.

The bike is built up with Campagnolo’s 12-speed Super Record mechanical groupset and 60mm deep Campag Bora WTO wheels.

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Like most Spoon Customs bikes, this one features a Chris King headset – an InSet 7 – while the CNC-machined brake callipers are Ted Ciamillo GSL Micros. They’re super-lightweight and extremely rare.

The handlebar and seatpost are from Enve while the saddle is a Selle Italia SLR Boost Kit Carbonio Superflow. The complete bike comes in at 7.5kg.

Spoon Customs offers a range of bikes in various materials, including the Izoard RR with a Columbus HSS or XCr front triangle and a Columbus Spirit rear.

Check out the full range here.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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andystow | 6 months ago
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That's quite lovely. I might be too afraid of getting a scratch in the paint to ride it.

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