The story of Fernweh's custom forks
Words and pictures by Mathieu Davy
How it started
It started somewhere towards the end of 2020…
- E: Hey, Matt, you need a new off road bike!
- M: Nope, I love my tripster, I can do everything on it, I wouldn't know what to do with
another off-road bike!
- E: fair enough…
Fast forward a few months of Emma teasing everyone by prancing around on a non-disclosable mountain bike for off-road adventures, and I received a message from her saying: "Oh, by the way, I volunteered you to paint some forks for Kinesis.
A few discussions with Kinesis later, and I had agreed to paint "something unique and unusual" on 10 forks, with an un-declinable deal on one of the very few prototype frames of Fernweh in existence back then. As it turned out, I was getting a new bike after all! And a rather secret one at that! The original idea from Matt Gray, Kinesis's creative director, was to use a fade of colours in blue hues to mimic the new kinesis titanium etching, with some painted logos and a gloss finish. I could have just done that, but the people who know me know that it would not have been satisfying enough. So I planted the seed of using colour shifting instead of a fade, made a few test panels, and left the decision to Matt.
The process
Number 3… It was always going to be number 3!
I rehearsed the process several times, took lengthy notes about the order of layers, what worked and what didn't, so I could replicate that on the customer forks. My frame and fork arrived. I bought all the supplies for the 10 forks, and got painting… One. Mine.
"Number 0" got out of the curing oven in October 2021, ready to go have fun with Emma at the inaugural Gran-Guanche in the Canaries. The paint job and clear-coat survived superbly well the sand, rocks and lava fields of the Canaries, but due to covid delays, there was no sight of the final production forks being ready any time soon.
It wasn't until May 2023 that the forks actually arrived at my workshop! At least they were raw carbon, which meant no need to sand old paint! I dug out my now very old painting notes and got to work.
So what's the process to paint a fork then?
In its absolute simplest way, something like this:
1. Primer
2. Colour
3. Clear-coat
Except we had logos, a pearl black base, a marble effect layer, silver logos, waterslides transfers, and a polished clear-coat. To produce the samples, I had experimented with techniques, and devised a process to allow the layering without messing up the black basecoat. The pigment is applied very wet, then the pattern created with some cling film that, when pulled off, removes just enough pigment to create the marbling.
But this would mess up the black layer if it wasn't protected by a layer of clear-coat. So the complete process ended up being like this:
- Primer
- Pearl black base
- Clear-coat
- Marbled colour pigment
- Transparent paint to protect the marble layer
- Silver logos
- Silver numbers and chrome waterslide transfers
- 2 layers of clear-coat
- Wet sand
- Polish, polish, polish
The duration
Like every project, there are things I like to do and things I don't. With the exception of initial paint stripping if it's a bike already painted, I love the initial steps: the first coat of colour after primer, the first bright accents, the logos. Then seeing everything come to life with the first layer of clear-coat. And then there's the finishing: sanding and polishing which is all very necessary, but that no-one really enjoys!
What most customers don't realise is that the actual painting can be a small part of the whole process.
The lengthy parts are the dirty ones: preparation and sanding: Masking parts that can't be painted, masking around logos, sanding primer, sanding clear-coat between layers, sanding flat several times over with increasing grits before a final polish, and endless equipment cleaning: these are the steps where time disappears.
It all comes together
'It seemed like a good idea at the time' is cliché, and 10 forks doesn't sound like a lot, but…It actually was! However, when I reached the final pass of polishing with the very fine compound: all was forgiven and all the hours of work came to life with the colours really shining through the clear-coat.
Limited edition:
All forks are similar, but each is unique in its pattern and is hand numbered. But there are only 10! So get your limited edition fork quickly and send some photos of your adventures to Kinesis.
I'd love to know where each fork and Fernweh will take you!
Thanks Emma. Thanks Matt. Thanks Kinesis