PaintHouse Customs Contest!

Source: PaintHouse Customs

Hey guys. Stacy Glaser here from PaintHouse Customs, and I'd like to announce the 2009 "Your Name Here!" contest. This is your chance to win a custom painted POC helmet valued at over $1000! This helmet features some classy plaid graphics and contest sponsors Santa Cruz Bicycles and Pinkbike.com emblems.

Contest details inside,
All you have to do is design your own name graphic for the back of the helmet. I will choose my favorite design, then recreate it on the helmet. The name design must fit within a maximum 2 inch tall by 4 inch wide box. Entries can be computer drawings, photos of hand drawings, etc. No stock fonts will win this contest! Be original, simple designs without lots of small detail will be the best.


Send your entries to: contest.painthousecustoms@gmail.com. Contest closes Monday, October 19th. The top 5 finalists will be announced Monday, October 26th. The winning design will be announced, along with pics of the completed helmet, on Friday October 30th! Second place will receive a pair of custom, PaintHouse branded, Straitline bar end caps.


Keep an eye out on Pinkbike.com for sweet spy shots over the course of this contest. Good luck from everyone at PaintHouse Customs!

*Disclaimer*- Helmet is a size large/xl POC Cortex DH Carbon. Final design might vary slightly from the concept drawings. Winning contestants entries might have to be modified to make them paintable. Entries should be in a standard format like jpeg, tiff, or png. All entries must be sent to contest.painthousecustoms@gmail.com by October 19th 2009.

For any questions or enquiries on custom painted helmets check out painthousecustoms.com or email at: painthousecustoms@gmail.com

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PaintHouse Custom's Santa Cruz Driver 8 Bike Check:
Words by Stacy Glaser. Photography by Julian Kenchenten

About a year ago, around the same time that I was starting up PaintHouse, I contacted Santa Cruz Bicycles about getting a "team bike" for PaintHouse. This bike would be custom painted and used to showcase PaintHouse Customs and Santa Cruz, as well as shredding the gnar on the regular. At first I was expecting to receive the legendary V10, but at the time the new Driver 8 frame was in the works. After about a thousand emails I picked up my fresh new frame at Evolution bike shop, in Whistler BC.

First impressions were great. The fit and finish of the frame is immaculate. While disassembling the frame I noticed how well the bearings and axles were designed. With no bearings pressed into the frame and grease ports within the lower linkage this is a low maintenance machine. I quickly went to work refinishing the bike in a awesome color shifting "chameleon" paint. Staying away from complex graphics, I let the green-purple changing paint do the work. This paint not only changes depending on where the light is coming from, but also the direction you're viewing it from. The finished bike is quite a head turner and has been very well received amongst its peers.


Getting a new bike is always a special occasion, especially when your current rig is disintegrating beneath you. This bike also marked a lot of firsts for me: first VPP bike, first air sprung DH fork, first 8in travel fork, 1.5in headtube, Maxle 12mm rear axle, and 165mm cranks. All these aspects added to the experience of getting this new bike.


This is the first bike review I've written and I'm going to make an attempt to give an unbiased, to the point, review. I'm also not going to go into every nut and bolt, but instead highlight some key components that make this bike ride as good as it does.

To start, I'm 6ft 3in and I'm riding the large Driver 8 frame. This bike fits me really well but I can't help wondering what an XL would be like. I believe, Minnaar and Peaty are running custom extra large V10's, so hopefully this will trickle down into the production models eventually. Even at my height I chose to run 165mm cranks because of my generally aggressive riding style and big air tendencies. This also provides better ground clearance for the 14.6in bottom bracket height, but clipping and dragging pedals is not completely eliminated. I ended up getting FSA Gravity light cranks which have been great. They shaved over half a pound off my last set up and have a clean, rounded shape that doesn't tear up my ankles. The only time I feel the shorter cranks hinder me is when doing longer climbs, but that's a rare occasion anyway.

One of the main traits of this bike that gives it its signature good handling is its low center of gravity and centrally located mass, much like a mid engine sports car. The shock is mounted low in the middle of the bike along with the bulk of the suspensions linkage and drivetrain. This combined with a very simple, minimalistic rear triangle and a lightweight fork create a very well balanced bike on the ground and in the air.


I've been riding this bike now for about 2 months and I think the way the bike corners is one of the most distinctive differences compared to other bikes I've ridden recently. With a steeper than average head angle(66.5), combined with its already low center of gravity, this bike really corners on rails. The steeper head angle lets you get your weight well over the front end and get tons of traction on the front wheel eliminating a lot of understeer. This also adds to greater exit speeds out of turns. There is no real loss in high speed stability due to the tighter angles on the Driver 8. The bike's great balance also gives it lightening quick direction changes and on command oversteer drifting. Best described as "sporty handling" in my books. Adding to the bike's great steering is the Straitline Components 50mm, 0 degree rise, direct mount stem. This gets the cockpit really low combined with a low rise handlebar and the zero stack internal headset. Straitline also provided me with a pair of their epic pedals which have a wide, low profile design and tons of traction even when not using soft compound shoes.


With a different build it's capable of being more of an all-around bike, but to me it is a great pure DH bike due in part with it sharing many numbers with its bigger brother the V10. It handles the steeps and the nastiest technical sections with ease. Being a Virtual Pivot Point system, there is no fixed pivot point between the front and rear triangles of the frame. What this does is give a very unrestricted suspension feel that swallows up big hits as well as having great small bump absorption. I have the shocks set up pretty stiff, but that's not to say I haven't bottomed the suspension. But there is nothing wrong with using all your travel occasionally.

The Driver 8 pedals very well as expected. Its compact geometry also gives it great acceleration from a stop and out of corners. In fact, I find myself shifting more through the gears over my last bike due to my overall higher speeds.


In the air the Driver is poised and easy to control. Send the Driver 8 into a whip and it's easy to recover. Scrubbing and sucking up smaller jumps is easy as well but I've also become a fan of doing "4 cross" style pedal wheelies over smaller jumps. The RockShox BOXXER World Cup came pro-tuned from James at Suspension Werx and has worked extremely well. They feel buttery smooth and not worrying about blowing seals and painting my brakes in fork oil is quite a load off my back. The RockShox Vivid rear shock has done the job well but took a little while to get dialed in. Both hold up well during long nonstop DH runs.


The bike doesn't have zero brake jack but it isn't bad. If you're off the brakes through turns and over rough sections, like you should be, brake jack shouldn't be an issue. Speaking of brakes, Suspension Werx also hooked me up with a pair of Hayes Stroker Trail brakes. At first I was a little skeptical because of their "trail bike" badging, but they have provided plenty of fade free stopping power. Even verging on "grabby" in the beginning, but they have broken in well over the past few weeks.

Overall I am totally stoked on the Santa Cruz Driver 8. It's taken everything I've thrown at it with stride. It not only rides great but the frame also covers the basics well, like cable routing. The integrated rear mud guard also protected the shock well from a lot of debris. Cheers to Santa Cruz on making a very fast, mega bike!


Special thanks to:
Santa Cruz Bicycles
Pinkbike.com
Suspension Werx
Sombrio Clothing
POC
Straitline Components
Julian Kenchenten Photography

PaintHouse.

For any question or enquiries on custom painted helmets check out painthousecustoms.com or email at: painthousecustoms@gmail.com