MASU Preliminary Color Options

I have narrowed down the color range and am working the details out on the powder color options.  It is my goal to offer all three options.  The renderings are representational of the combinations.  It is harder than I thought to get things to move through all the digital flaming hoops and onto your monitor they way the will look when baked onto the steel.  Still I would like to solicit your opinions on the color choices.

First up is a blue reminiscent of the early Stumpjumpers, a light navy with fine silver flake:

The yellow is slightly towards the orange side, with a fine gold and silver flake.  Think somewhere between sunflower, traffic sign and an old Porsche:

and the Red, It is a true red with a fine silver flake.  Think Italian sports car here:

I am still working with the powder coater to finalize these options.  There will be some variance from my color chips once applied to the steel bike tubes.  I will share samples as soon as I have them.

Let me know what you all think.  There is still time to change my mind, but I am pretty sure these will be the options for the first few rounds of production.

Update:  I did the best that I could with a picture of the color chips.  This should help you at least move in the direction of the final colors in you mind’s eye.  I real life, the blue as just a touch more gray to it, The yellow is a touch more orange, and the red is pretty close.  As above, these are just the chips, next step is color Samples on steel

 

14 thoughts on “MASU Preliminary Color Options”

  1. Been watching the progress of this from the stat, and am very excited for the outcome! As nice as the three colors are, I’d like to see the frame in silver.

    Cheers,
    Chris

    1. I love my silver bikes too, the thing is that our little corner of the bicycle world is still pretty narrow. By that I mean production low trail bikes. While the Masu is a fairly different bike in looks and design than the Rawland sogn, I figure Sean gets dibbs on silver first. I picked these colors, one because I like them, and two I wanted the line to be differentiable at first glance from a Pelican or sogn. The design of the frame can only set it apart so much, after that we have color. As the pond gets wider and the years roll on, maybe there will be a silver, but for now This is it unless there is some sort of upheaval against one of the colors or I get 50 or some such orders for a shade of silver 😉

      1. Well now that you put it that way (and I’m not full of merlot) I completely understand! Maybe I need to brighten my outlook, and appreciate some color! Really looking forward to seeing the finished product. Are you going to be able to offer the Paul brakes with the frameset?

        Thanks,
        Chris

        1. The paul brake will be integral to the design with the mounting studs brazed on. Th initial offering will be a frame, fork and brake set.

          Color is good, and for the conservatives there is the blue

  2. This frame is shaping up to be very interesting indeed. Good job!

    As for paint… Everyone has a preferred color, mine would be burgundy with silver decals. I have one of the Tom Kellogg designed Ross Signature bikes from the 80’s in that color scheme and even 25+ years later it looks fabulous. Of your three color offerings, please put me down for a blue one. Would the decals on that one be yellow, like in the rendering? I’d much prefer silver or white … but that’s just me. Also, Is there any clearcoat over the decals? If not, please choose any decal color you like, since I can have my own made for very little cost.

    Do you know when pricing and delivery date of the initial run will be announced?

    Thanks again for adding another option to my my frame choices!

    -Jack

    1. Thanks for your continued feedback and enthusiasm for the project.

      In my color selection process I thought that the blue would please the classic conservatives, the true red would get the sporty bike guys blood pumping and the yellow…I just like yellow. The decal color on the blue is likely to be a yellow close to the dark yellow of the title on the blog page. I am finishing up the art this week, and need to make some choices on the thin outline that surrounds the letters to make them pop a little. I may also add a third color logo that is a bit more neutral, silver/gray could work for that. I started with the hopes of putting the decals under a clear coat, but this is becoming a minor challenge in working with a powder base color. If I go with powder clear, it is going to look better with the decal on top, and the color will likely look subtly better. I wanted to put the decal between the powder and a liquid clear, but cost of the liquid clear becomes an issue, and begins to negate the gain of using powder at all. In theory it is possible to put the decal between powder layers, but there is a margin for failure that could cause a logistics and delivery delay. I should have all of this resolved early this week. I am certain there will be a solution that you will like.

      With regard to pricing and delivery. My contractor has everything he need to start the samples. We are working out the detailing around the chain stay real estate between the tire and chain rings. I want to be sure we nail this. Once that is worked out, there will be a batch of 4 sizes made for test riding and a few for destructive testing. From there it is procurement of materials, and correcting any details that need attention after riding and testing the samples. If we can keep the timeline on track, these should be available in mid April, by May for sure. I have a threshold price that I think will make everybody happy, it will be well above the china price, but below the limited competition I have here in the states, and it will include the Paul brakes since they are integral to the design.

  3. I noticed some photos in a discussion on the iBOB list that may be of interest. The blue color was mentioned in this blog to be reminiscent of early Specialized bikes. Here’s a link to a photo of a beautiful 1980’s Sequoia in a similar color … Rob is this close to the blue color?
    http://howtostretch.com/bikegallery5.html

    The white decals sure do look purdy with that blue. wink….wink …. 🙂

    1. I think Mark’s Sequoia is a year or two newer then my wife’s. His looks a little more gray, you can see hers here:
      http://oceanaircycles.com/2011/05/20/bikes-in-the-garage-1983-specialized-sequoia-47cm/
      The color chip I have is shockingly close to hers. In the 83-85 specialized offerings there was a gray and blue used on these, the expeditions and stump jumpers. I do like the white/silver decal, it looks good with all the silver parts, but I like hoe the touring label pops, and wanted to capture a bit of that. I am leaning towards top mount decals and that could give us a bit of flexibility on the issue.

  4. Great idea to offer 3 colors. They all look good to me. The blue looks like the color of my late 80s Fisher MTB. The yellow is really striking & the one I’d go for. The red looks like the Alfa Romeo red, or any classic Itallian bike. I think you’ve nailed the colors. Lookin’ good.

    dougP

  5. I love the yellow!

    Have you made a final decision on 1″ vs. 1 1/8″ steerer? I side with Alex’s arguments — and think you could sell some extra 1″ conversion forks on the side.

    best

    Art

    1. The production samples will be made with 1 1/8″ steerers. I will base decisions on production from that. I have thought about having conversion forks made available. The pricing would be no where near as attractive as an import fork, but still better than a custom. Once the production samples are complete and I have a handle on final pricing I will know if I want to pursue that avenue. I will also know where the 700c and 650b forks will fall with exact final dimensions. While the production bike is slated to ave braze-ons for the Paul Racer brakes, we are working hard to get the bridges and brake holes in a place where the bosses could be left off and tektro or Diacompe 750 type brakes used. If I hit the sweet spot I am thinking these forks could work reasonably well with a Surly or Riv, but we will see where they land in reality, which is always a little different than you hope on paper.

      If I had to pick only one color I think it would be yellow. If I did that I am sure I would get more resistance though. Funny thing is everybody who “prefers” the other colors, comes back with at least an “I like the yellow” but I think it is a little to flashy for some.

  6. A white headtube would underscore “classic”, too.

    Some of the postings mentioned an orange possibility … in a few years?

    1. Color is always an interesting challenge. For now they will be single color powdercoat for two reasons: 1) cost control 2) sometimes a contrasting tube an look funny with out lugs to create a defined separation.

      I may switch up colors in the future. I hope to run all of this lean enough that I can make those changes as market demands.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *