Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimesv

The common house fly seems to be an odd choice for a personal symbol, but it’s one that illustrator Bicycle Crumbs has thought long and hard about. The fly logo made a recent appearance on the wall of a stunning collaboration with California’s Franco Bicycles.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

Bicycle Crumbs is the pseudonym of an Instagram personality who posts a review along with an illustration of the product. He’s been kept pretty busy over the last few months with commissions and collaborations, like this one.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

Regardless of the negative connotation, Bicycle Crumbs considers the fly an opportunist “in the best possible way.” Flies can be found in even the harshest environments, feeding off what is discarded to multiply and grow. It’s all about survival.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

It just goes to show what you can do with a good idea. A little talent doesn’t go astray, either. Bicycle Crumbs is extremely adept at using Adobe Illustrator, and the bike scene is falling in love with his depictions of racing characters and hardware.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

After a crowd-stopping hookup with Philosophy Bicycles at NAHBS earlier this year on his custom all-road bike with paint by Ethic Paint Works, the next machine to get the Bicycle Crumbs treatment was a Franco Bicycles’ Grimes Disc build.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

Again, the arresting signature graphic style was applied. The background is a perfect balance of big, bold, baby blue sections and hypnotically intricate red panels. Corporate branding on the rims, frame, handlebars and cockpit has been dispensed with.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

In their place are Bicycle Crumbs’ interpretations of them, including a fresh hand-drawn ENVE logo, which looks significantly more fun than their current brand. Maybe they should commission Bicycle Crumbs themselves.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

The Grimes is Franco’s all-road model, but this one is built up as a ‘Super Commuter’. A SRAM eTap, carbon ENVE 3.4 Disc wheelset kind of super commuter. It might be a little over-the-top for a daily rider, but that’s the point.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

Even the Ritchey logo was redrawn, along with Franco’s logo, represented on the fork leg. Their country of their frames origin is also inscribed on the down tube. All Franco frames are made from US steel in Portland, Oregon.

Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes

The paint work took around forty hours to complete, applied by Peter Morris at Premier Bicycle Werks. The finished project may have been a challenge but it certainly proves the talents and teamwork of everyone involved.

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Hand Drawn Steel: Bicycle Crumbs x Franco Grimes