New Project

I've been missing the Pinn, and wish I had a good little bike to boot around the city. I'm reminded of it everytime I see a nice fixie like this pic I found on Flickr.



I happened to run into my friend Marshall on my way home and he just GAVE me this great old Marinoni frame.



Marinoni, out of Montreal is the most well known Canadian custom bike builder. Judging by the rear triangle spacing this one is a mid-80s (or older) model, though the paint is newer.



When I was a kid all the local hotshots had custom steel bikes like this.

I really dig the outlined logos and 80s fade paint-job. I'm not nuts about lugged frames and whatnot, but the flat crowned fork with the cast in maple leafs is a work of art. And look at those reinforcing strips along the inside.

It has one big problem though. The downtube has a chunk ripped out of it :







and to top it off, I dropped the fork while carrying it home and dinged the steerer:



So I'll have to figure out how to deal with those two things. Then the question is how should it be built up ? Fixie or full-on orad bike and how much should I spend.

Interestingly, I saw this car in Kensington whihch has the same paintjob:



So it is possible to get a matching asscar.