Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

We’re big fans of the Czech custom bike scene here at The Spoken. It might not be the world’s biggest, but the quality of what small number of builders there are make up for it. Choceň’s SingleBe astounds us once again, with this Escher-inspired 29er.

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

Believe it or not, the artwork on this steel 29er commuter was painted in house by one of the partners, Tom Kutin. Painting frames is a hobby of his, as well as managing the day-to-day running of the business, and he obviously likes a challenge.

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

Karel is the chief builder at SingleBe, and he assembled the frame’s main triangle from Reynolds 853 with Dedacciai ZERO Evo rear stays, the shape of which allow the brake caliper to be set inbetween the seat and chain stays.

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

Satisfying the customer’s love for high tech and modern components, the frame is equipped for Shimano’s XT Di2 groupset — the battery is hidden inside the seat post — and all cables are routed internally.

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

That burly segmented fork perfectly complements the frame and was also built by SingleBe. It features their 3D printed fender mounts and, once the frame and fork were completed, it was time to apply the paint…

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

Tom translated Escher’s 1942 ‘Lizard’ design into vectors and laid a mask over the frame and parts so they all lined up, and then proceeded to lay down each base color, followed by the eyes, spines, shading, and fingers.

The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher

Each color set of lizards took about 3 hours each, but the 20-odd hours the whole process was worth it. This is the customer’s second SingleBe, and it’s easy to understand why he came back for more.

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The Lizard King: SingleBe 29Escher