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Custom 26er: is that worst the effort?

Aug 22, 2019 at 4:45
by Geoffroy Vieville  

Sunrise on my fresh custom paintjob YT Wicked 150 ltd 2012
PB, Instagram and custom cars TV shows influence
on a passion driven week-end warrior
Sunrise on my fresh custom paintjob on a not so fresh YT Wicked 150 ltd (26er since 2012)
A lot of spare time spend on this personal project
As many PB users, I ride as often as I can and I love it. About 3 years ago, my YT industries Wicked 150 ltd was bad looking with all these scars, dents, chips, and damages encoutered on 3 years of very rocky local trails. At that time, some PB articles (worldchamps colorways) catched all my attention. Obviously the work done by Adrian Flor on the 2016 worldchamps YT Tues of Aaron Gwin started to seed something for me. "No decals rule" was mandatory since then! I followed many talented Instagram profiles : Tony Baumann, Alistair McLean, Iain Baldwin, Image Design Custom, OCD Design4victory, and more. And I gave it a go. But a paintjob by itself would of course be way too easy for a beginner... so I decided to sand down the carbon seat stays to lay down carbon fabric to obtain added stiffness (I wanted to install rear 203mm rotors - please trust me, "I am an engineer") and badass look.Did I mention I never mixed epoxy resins before ? By the way and with a quite long process of trials and errors, I reached my goal and had a fairly new custom paintjob (plus carbon seat stays madness). The downside of this first project was that I did not use the right paint, the right varnish. So it was very weak and lasted way less than the original paintjob. At the beginning of this year, I decided to do better, then I bought a Sobre Upgrade (29er hardtail, second hand) so I can ride all the time I work on my YT. That was the beginning of the second custom paintjob project.
It took me about 5 months, and here are some hilights, hope you will enjoy.
Sunrise on a YT Industries custom paintjob - windmill and Montagne Noire background
YT Industries custom paintjob - Gruissan - Barberousse background

YT Industries custom paintjob - top tube candy red details didspade
YT Industries custom paintjob - airbrush custom badge

Sunrise on a YT Industries custom paintjob - Montagnes du Caroux EWS background
YT Industries custom paintjob - details - Gruissan Barberousse background

Custom paint job. YT industries Wicked 150 ltd - 2012 Cranks rocker link stem steering spacers and a custom carbon bottom tube protection
Custom paint job custom carbon fabric layered on top of moulded original carbon seat stays YT industries Wicked 150 ltd - 2012 Seat stays logos - no decals only paint

Do it yourself
Except for the öhlins TTX service, I did all the rest by myself, and I really enjoyed it. I serviced Reverb drop post, Bos deville 160 and Avid Code.
Another part of the inspiration for these projects were TV shows about overhauling and customization. Yes, I assume! Some of these guy's workshops are full of talents wether it is about metaljob or paintjob. I learned a few things watching these shows.

Let's do it!
Do your bike need some TLC ? Well, do it. Do not hesitate, it's very rewarding to craft something you love and to use it.

Here is my YT Industries Wicked from 2012. I did paint job carbon job and photo shoot all by myself. Hope you guys enjoy
Here is a glimpse at the first paintjob project from 2016


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Member since Dec 4, 2012
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