Tuesday, February 23, 2010

NAHBS Preview :: Bike 3 :: PWXL 00/40

The 40th anniversary Phil Wood bike. We will be making 40 of these titanium frames for Phil Wood, actually 41 if you count this one, #00, for Peter who is THE MAN over at Phil Wood.

We cut the tubes and sent them over to Phil Wood headquarters to get polished, then we tacked and welded them all together and sent the completed frame back to them for a final polish and build up. They just sent the completed build to us today to bring down to NAHBS in Richmond, VA.

We couldn't help but to snap some pics for our NAHBS preview series.

So while you digest the following tasty treats we will be building up the final 2 bikes. Hopefully we will have time to shoot them before loading 'em up into the van.






Rumor has it that they are sending us a different saddle for the show... something special from France. Oui! Oui!

PWXL-00/40. See it in person at the IF booth at the (S)NAHBS.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Paper Labels :: Recap

Thanks to all that came out for our show last Friday night, it was a blast. The Paper Labels Project was huge fun for us and our co-conspirators. Out friends from Highsnobiety came by our factory to find out more about the project and our man Stebs from Quarter Productions was there to make a little video.

Independent Fabrications X Bodega X BaileyBag Works from Quarter Productions on Vimeo.

The FourthWall Project has a great space for an event, nice lighting all around and plenty of room to show off the bikes.



We would like to send out a special thanks to Jason for being our DJ for the night, he did a great job setting the mood and keeping things lively.

All of our bike hanging hooks were still there from our party last year in the space, making setup a breeze. Each of the three project packages were displayed together. Above is the Mellow Fellow and the Higgins and below is the Duck Hunter.


The 3 vintage cans on the left were the inspiration for the project, the can on the right was made just for the project.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

NAHBS Preview :: Bike 2

As part 2 of our 5 part preview we have another bike going to NAHBS this year. This is a Titanium Deluxe 29'er set up for winter riding (or shredding as the case might be).

Safety and durability were 2 of the main concerns we wanted to address when undertaking this project. The high visibility paintjob and reflective decals and accessories make for riding at night much safer, which also happens far more frequently this time of year.

The studded Nokian tires also make for a much more stable ride on the ice that is everywhere this time of year (especially here in New England).


The internally geared SRAM i-motion 9 speed rear hub keeps those gears shifting even when the drivetrain is covered in icy sludge.

Simple and minimal full cable housing keeps the muck out of the lines.

Disc brakes also make for more predictable and powerful stopping.

This bike also features full size stainless steel fenders to keep you dry and a waterproof BaileyWorks rack bag (also with a highly reflective element) to keep your spare pair of socks dry.

Monday, February 15, 2010

NAHBS Preview :: Bike 1

We will be bringing 5 bikes to NAHBS this year, a couple of which are finished. We displayed them, along with some other bikes at the Paper Labels show on Friday night. For those of you that didn't make it to the event we are going to share a little bit of the inside action with you.

This bike is a super sturdy and ultra lightweight singlespeed. This is one of our Corvid frame sets with horizontal dropouts and a Gates Carbon Belt Drive.

This belt drive requires no lube ever, will get about 10,000 miles of use, is super silent and ridiculously light weight.

White, Baby Blue, Evening Blue and clearcoated carbon fiber is the theme.

Prologo supplied the all carbon Nack saddle for us to paint.

Cane Creek supplied the integrated headset.

SRAM provided their new carbon fiber singlespeed brake levers.

Then we juiced up the braking power with some Zero Gravity GSL's.

The wheels are EDGE 38 clinchers, DT Swiss Aerolite bladed spokes and some special Chris King hubs.

CD over at Chris King hooked us up with these modified one-off hubs made just for this project.

Thanks to all that helped to make this project become a reality.

13lbs, complete is not to bad for a sturdy singlespeed. We are going to do a couple of more things to this bike before the show to make it even cooler, so be on the lookout.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Paper Labels :: Friday February 12th :: FourthWall

Let me just start by saying that: "Collaboration is a good thing". The best thing about it for us was letting go for a moment. In our years of building bicycles we have built up many biases and beliefs as to how a bicycle should look and how it should perform. By letting the Bodega crew come up with the basic look and feel of each theme within this project we found ourselves building bicycles that many might find cliche or fashionable but in the eyes of the Bodega designers, looking into the bicycle world from the outside, this was an opportunity to explore a new direction and pull from their vast design experiences in a market that parallels ours yet has little crossover. Their naivete of the rights and wrongs and the what is cool or not in the bicycle world were never even on the radar and created a result that is totally fresh and different from many of the projects we have done in the last few years.... and it was fun!

Paper Labels is a design project uniting Independent Fabrication (Somerville, MA), Bodega (Boston, MA) and BaileyWorks (Portsmouth, NH)- three local DIY crews hellbent on creating the best in their respective fields.
Paper labels of vintage and deadstock spraypaint serves as the palette upon which the three concept bikes, four courier bags and three graphic t-shirts were created.

The color scheme and iconography of Paper Labels was derived from Bodega's archive of discontinued vintage spraypaint which is heavily sought after and hunted for by collectors. These colors were popularized by the 80's graffiti culture. Krylon Aqua Turquoise #2008, Krylon O.D. Khaki #2301, and Krylon Metallic Blue #1903 serve as the foundation for the bikes color schemes.
Additional graphics for the bikes were created referencing some designs from other old vintage can labels, such as Diamond Finish and Smooth Coat. Only 15 of each model will be made and will include the matching bag(s), t-shirt and a can of spraypaint mixed and labeled just for each bike.

So... introducing: The Duck Hunter:






The Higgins:







and.... The Mellow Fellow:




The project will be unveiled on Friday February 12th at 8pm at the FourthWall Gallery, 132 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA.

Items from this project can be purchased by contacting us here at Independent Fabrication.

P.S. also expect to see (at the fourthwall) a preview of some of the projects we are working on for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show which takes place in Richmond, VA on February 26th-28th 2010.

Download PDF about the project HERE.