Reinvention: Charlie the phoenix bicycle?

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages - this is one of those moments I tend to equate with showing your parents you got an A on the spelling test and a gold star sticker, one they put it on the fridge.

Those gold stars were something else, surreal and powerful to my young mind.

Right now Charlie is the gold star.

I started out half a year ago on a project that I thought might take a weekend, but I let creativity run the show and so it's become a growing opportunity mixed in with a creative outlet.

Charlie the blue fixie returns to the streets at long last!

New old bike day!

He's got a snazzy 700c wheelset I build myself - H Plus Son Archetype rims laced to White Industries track hubs. His lovely 15T splined cog came in. He's running a track chain and has some drop bars.

Old road aesthetics meet some period appropriate componentry with a touch of modern and a side of DIY - mix together and you there you have him.

On the stand, hoods uncovered

By last summer we had racked up over 8k miles together. Mercutio has been the fall and winter mount, earning himself a respectable (approximately) thousand miles. (And now needs a bottom bracket overhaul compliments of winter road grunge.) But now it's Charlie's turn to shine!