Over the summer, I had my Gunnar Hyper-X repainted by Rick Stefani at D&D Cycles. Rick’s shop is located in San Lorenzo, CA, just south of the Oakland airport.

When I ordered the bike back in 2016, I picked a simple black and white color scheme for the frame, and kept the stock matte black finish on the fork. Looking back, I was always bummed that I didn’t do something more interesting. The frame was made to order, and I had a wide range of color choices available to me.

The original visual concept for the bike was “suit and tie off-roader,” which led me to the black and white color scheme. The problem with this approach was that all of the visual interest came from the tires, saddle, and bar tape. The frame was just a dark background that helped these lighter accents stand out. If I switched to darker sidewall tires or a black saddle and bar tape, the bike lost all of its visual appeal.

Eventually, I did want to swap out my tires, saddle, and bar tape, but the visual tradeoff was painful. I needed the frame to stand on its own, and fresh paint was the only way to make this happen. I thought about sending the frame and fork back to Waterford for a factory repaint, but that would have cost at least $1k and required additional hassle for shipping. Instead, I wanted to find someone locally who could do a repaint of a similar quality.

After Googling around a bit, I found the Paints, and repaints page on Rivendell’s website that pointed me to D&D as a good local option. I called D&D at the beginning of May to get details, and was quoted $500 for a single-color frame and fork repaint, plus $150 if I wanted decals. The estimated lead time was 3 to 4 weeks. This sounded great, and I had some decisions to make.

First, I decided not to do decals. Doing decals would have required calling up Waterford, tracking down the right set, and having it mailed out to California. This would have added time and cost, and I didn’t feel like I needed decals. I like the minimal, unbranded look. Second, I needed to decide on color. The thing with single-color paint jobs is that you need to nail the color. If you don’t nail the color, there’s nothing to save you, and this is especially true if there are no decals.

To make sure I nailed the color, I ordered a paper swatch for the color I wanted: “Brick Dust” (also known as Pantone 17-1424). It was painful spending $25 on a piece of paper, but the swatch helped me understand what the color would look like under different lighting conditions. It even came with a thin plastic sheath that helped simulate the clear coat I would be getting on top.

I liked the swatch color, and I called D&D back to schedule a time to drop off the frame and fork. I drove out to San Lorenzo later that week, and found the shop in a quiet industrial park close to the waterfront. It’s worth noting that Google Maps marks the shop as “Permanently Closed,” which isn’t the case as of writing this.

In the end, the 3 to 4 week time estimate slipped to 9 weeks, which I kind of expected. I wasn’t in a rush, and it wasn’t a problem. Most importantly, the paint looked fantastic. The rear dropouts weren’t masked, which I didn’t expect, but these were easy to clean up with an X-Acto Knife. If I did this again I would have requested rear dropout masking, but this was a minor detail.

The color looks a bit lighter and brighter in the photos than it does in real life. People have compared it to the classic Porsche Pink Pig color scheme.

Appendix #

Timeline #

Costs #

Only paint-related costs are listed. Headset work was done by Tam Bikes in Mill Valley, CA.

Further Reading #

For an explanation of the painting process from Rick at D&D, check out this video from Rivendell.

For a real Porsche Pink Pig paint job, check out this article from Specialized.

For more Gunnar Hyper-X content, check out this article from The Radavist.