Choosing a Paint Color

This is the best part of building my own bike. I love colors, I love sparkles, and bikes for adults are never sold in any interesting colors. The Surly Long Haul Trucker frame that I bought came in Boring Black: a classic, but not gonna work for me.

I could’ve grabbed a can of spray paint and gone to town, but that’s not a good idea for longevity of the paint job. A professional powder coat is pretty much the only way to go to get decent, long-lasting coverage. Local biking groups recommended AP Paints, which is run by a painter who also knows bikes really well. Oftentimes, the most expensive part about getting a custom paint job on a bike is deconstructing and reconstructing the bike. Lucky for me, my frame doesn’t have any parts on it yet.

Anthony of AP Paints picked up my frame to take it to the sand blaster, and then instructed me to select colors from Prismatic Powders, where he sources his paints. I decided to go with one color, because it’s less overwhelming to choose and it’s also a little less expensive. It’s difficult to get a good feeling for the colors on a computer screen, so I ordered a bunch of swatches.

Obviously, I’m going for the sparkly purple vibe. I spent a long time pondering these colors, moving them around in different light, thinking about how the colors would go with other components on the bike. I got my heart set on color number PPB-10372*, which is a dark purple/blue with hot pink sparkles (it's the second from the left in the photo above). The photos don't do it justice...

Unfortunately for me, this color happens to be on backorder until late December. I decided it was worth the wait, since I’m not in a rush anyways. Anthony kindly gave me my frame back in the meantime, so I can continue to work on fitting other components onto the bike.

And now we wait!

*Please disregard the racial slur in the color name… I chose it for the color, not the name.