Check out this Cannondale CAAD12 road bike in a one-off Star-Spangled-tastic paint job.
We’ve out visiting a couple of UK bike trade shows this week, and this is one of the most eye-catching bikes we’ve spotted so far. Some of you might have seen it at the Rouleur Classic before Christmas.
As you might well know, the CAAD12 is an aluminium framed bike that was first revealed last summer, an evolution of the super-popular CAAD10.
Cannondale says that it’s lighter, stiffer and more compliant than the CAAD10. Naturally. Bikes are always lighter, stiffer and more compliant than their predecessors, that’s cycling law!
Check out our previous story to get more details on the CAAD12.
What’s really interesting here, though, is the paint job. It’s the work of Alistair McLean at Fat Creations based in West Sussex.
The silver sections – the Cannondale name on the down tube and the stars on the top tube, for example – are actually the aluminium frame showing through. They’ve been masked while the paint has been added to the frame.
Then the paint has been rubbed down so that it’s very thin before the next colour is added. This means that frame is smooth, with no discernible difference in feel between the painted and the unpainted areas. It's an incredibly time-consuming process.
The built up bike as seen here (without pedals) weighs a claimed 6.8kg (15lb).
If you wanted one like this, you’d need to give Fat Creations a shout.
Cannondale has done Stars and Stripes paint jobs before. Here's the Slice belonging to US national time trial champ Andrew Talansky.
Mat has worked for loads of bike magazines over 20+ years, and been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. He's been road.cc technical editor for eight years, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. 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 past winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer.