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NAHBS 2013: Groovy Cycles Feat of Flesh Zombie bike, Plus the Triple Candy Travel Bike

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Groovy Zombie Bike

When walking by the Groovy Cyclesworks booth it was very hard to miss the zombie themed bike dubbed the “Feat of Flesh.”  Rody of Groovy cycles is a one man band.  He’s been building frames since the hay day of mountain biking in the early 90’s.  The focus of Groovy is to build for the customer, and machine a smile on their face from the first ride.  This comes through with the passion and love Rody builds with.  He controls every bit of the build process.  He starts by making the jig the frame is welded on, and continues all the way through painting the bike.

Hit the jump for a detailed look at how the “Feat of Flesh” bike came together, plus a candy suprise.

Groovy Zombie Bike Detail 1

We spoke with Rody, the builder / painter of this bike and he filled us in on just how such a fantastic peice of art came to be.  The coating on the bike is neither liquid paint, nor powder coat.  In fact, it is a ceramic coating that was originally developed for use by the military on sniper rifles.  The titanium frame, seat post, and stem were created.  Next, the graphics were drawn up by hand in Adobe Illustrator.

Groovy Zombie Bike Detail 2

Maskings were printed out from the images and placed on the bike.  Next the frame was placed into an acetone bath, followed by sand blasting.  Due to the very fine details of some of the maskings however, custom screens had to be created in order to keep the maskings from disintegrating.  Once cleaned up, the ceramic coating was sprayed.  It has a very minimal build up of .001 inches (compared to 2 to 2.5 mm for powder coating).  The ceramic layer consists of three parts.  There is a carrier, the ceramic coat, and a catalyst harder.  This results in a very durable finish for the bike.  The green “shotgun blast” took a bit of experimentation.  The carrier for the ceramic coat has to be modified so that the coating would sling off the brush to create just the right effect.  The entire process took Rody 12 hours.  But in that 12 hours, he managed to created on of the best looking bikes on the NAHBS show floor this year.

Groovy Zombie Bike Detail 4

Groovy Zombie Bike Detail 3

 

Groovy Candy Bike

The candy bike Groovy had on hand was stunning.  To achieve the effect, Rody laid a black base coat, followed by a hand brushed silver.  Next, a red candy was sprayed at the bottom of the frame, followed by an orange candy in the middle, and a gold candy up top.  The Groovy logos were masked off as well, and afterwards were hit with a sparkly silver, with gold for the crown.  The end result is a bike that will absolutely pop in the sun.

Groovy Candy Bike S & S Couplers

Groovy Candy Bike Logos

 

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Brandon
Brandon
11 years ago

I’ve never come across a powder coat that was 2.5mm thick, who lays it on like that?

Ajax
Ajax
11 years ago

Whoa! Hideous, ugly, and well, just plain dumb. Why do a ceramic whatever you call it powder coat that is soooo thick like that? Just so that you can say nobody else does it and charge $6000 for it? No thanks.

Zac
Zac
11 years ago

Something to keep in mind about Rody’s finishes: Some of his more out there graphics aren’t for everyone but the bikes are custom made for individuals. The zombie bike wasn’t something built to win a trophy at NAHBS or to impress the denizens of the internet. It was built because someone wanted a bike built exactly to their specs.

and that ceramic finish isn’t thick. It’s a small fraction of a millimeter and incredibly durable. that’s why he did it, and it wasn’t to charge someone $6000.

a
a
11 years ago

If you are going to compare two things then they need to share units.

No way ANY powdercoat is 2mm thick. 0.2mm maybe.

0.001″ is 0.025mm

So the ceramic coating is perhaps a tenth the thickness of powdercoat. Put like that it starts to make sense and seem somewhat impressive.

Bobby B
Bobby B
11 years ago

Hey folks, better to understand the terminology before jumping on the hate wagon.

In powder coating, a “mil” is a representative measurement equaling 1/1000 of an inch, NOT A MILLIMETER. Recommended manufacturer build thickness for powder is 2 – 5 mil, or about .002″ – .005″ in thickness.

The Ceramic coating is at least half that of powder, or 1/5th on the high end.

I shoot powder all day on mostly industrial products and the versatility shown here with the ceramic coating is pretty darn cool.

Back to your regular programming.

Bobby B

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