Did I ever tell you I love pearl paint?

I love pearls. Growing up, I went to a ton of car and motorcycle shows. My dad is in that biz and we spent quite a few Sundays walking around looking at some incredible machines. I love seeing perfect paint jobs on big car panels. Orange peal (a type of surface roughness) and ripples pop out like a giant pimples. But perfectly flat finishes with super high gloss are just amazing. I think pearls compliment the efforts of the finisher in the same way that they can put a giant beacon on sins; they simply expose everything. If the underlying metal or paint work is less than perfect, the tiny pearl platelets pool up and/or don't reflect the light back in a uniform fashion. It kind of looks like swirls. Your eye immediately picks up on this. If the clear coat has orange peal or fish eyes or just ripples, the reflected light is distorted and it makes the color look almost yellow. But when the metal work is smooth, the primer is sanded out like glass, the base coats are smooth, the pearl coat is uniform, and the clear coat is flat, smooth, and buffed, look out.

That was a long-winded intro to this machine. Platinum White pearl with Bittersweet pearl panels. I love it. It really shows off how Keith strives for a perfectly smooth surface even over the decals. Again, any ripple in the surface screams out "look at me" when dealing with pearls. To do this when dealing with decals, Keith has to build up the clear and then wet sand it so that the decals are buried in clear. Then he does a few finish coats of clear for incredible gloss. Stunning.

Craig wanted a road bike with the option to run 25s or maybe even 27s for the occasional dirt road ride. I maxed out the fork length and brake bridge so that the pads are at the bottom of the slots on the brakes. Plenty of room in there now. Also added fender mounts for the nasty months in Buffalo. I love these multi-use bikes. It's the way of the future. many thanks, Craig!

On a different topic, Embrocation Cycling Journal republished my cross tubular gluing article from a year ago. Time flies. Hope it might help a few of you. I'm in the midst of another big round of gluing myself. The smell of Mastik is lingering in the shop. I love cross season.