Cosmetic Surgery

I've been talking about it for a while now but I'm finally getting something done.  The orange bike has arrived at Joe's Bicycle Painting for a new paint job!  Joe's was recommended by a good friend who had his LeMond Tete de Course done by Joe in a tinted clear coat that matched my friend's M3 exactly!

Over the couple of years that I've had the frame, it's taken a beating from chain slap and an errant nail that just so happened to go completely through my tire sidewall and ended up scraping the insides of both chain stays and normal wear and tear.

There were a couple of times when the chain got jammed between the crank and the chain stays.  That left a nasty scratch!  I don't believe there was a clear coat applied to the frame nor did I put any sort of clear paint guards on.

I was able to snag a bike box from Spokes, Etc.  Fortunately, the Marcelo has really beefy chain stays and awesome hand-cut stainless steel rear dropouts!  Unfortunately, this combination means that the frame is wider than the box I got.  Surgery was in order!

1. Sharp blade -- Check!
2. Fiber tape -- Check!
3. Dense foam -- Check!
4. Two-part poxy -- Check!

  <snip, snip, tape, tape, cut, cut, glue, glue>

Voila!

Custom bike box.

My Orange Frame nestled

snugly inside

Now to send this to on to Joe Vasquez!  My first stop is my local post office.  The box is light, 10lbs, but large and USPS says "$108 to ship", John says "No thanks.  I'll try FedEx."  It still costs me $76 to ship it but I saved over $32.

I want to have some fun with the frame so here is what I've asked Joe to do:

The down tube decals will be in the same color as the original except they will move to the seat tube and will read "DARIO" on one side and "PEGORETTI" on the other.  The font will be the same.

So, what do you think?  I still have time to change my mind but I must decide soon if any changes will be made!