Originally Posted by
rpenmanparker
Machka, Rowan, considering your strong feelings regarding Machak as an irreplaceable treasure, I hesitate to suggest you may ever want to have it repainted. If you ever did, however, that ding could easily be filled and covered. You may be surprised how many small dings and dents are hidden under paint on even brand new steel frames. Until they are stripped for rework and/or repainting, no one ever knows (except the builder). I understand your rationale for substituting the steel fork for the original carbon one. I am a little surprised, however, that you didn't go with a lugged steel fork with an elegant crown. Of if you didn't think that would have been aesthetically compatible, perhaps a fully sloping Cinelli style crown without external lugs to match your lugless frame better. Although the choice was, of course, yours, I personally find those much more attractive than unicrowns. Any thoughts on that you would care to share with us?
I got Machak in 2003 ... custom-built, and painted in the colours I specifically chose. And he came with a carbon-fibre fork. I took him to Europe and did the 2003 PBP and a short tour of Wales.
In about January 2004, the friend I toured Wales with proposed the idea of spending 3 months touring Australia. For that tour, I thought I needed a front rack and I couldn't put a front rack on the carbon fork. So I returned to the shop where I had ordered Machak and asked them to contact Marinoni and find out if I could get a steel fork to replace the carbon fork. And that was the fork I was given ... nicely painted the same dark blue as on other parts of Machak.
And yes, we are talking about contacting Marinoni to get information regarding the colours of paint I chose so that we might be able to do some touch-ups.
Just to round out the story a little bit ... turned out I was wrong about needed a front rack. You can do a 3-month tour just fine without one.
And I met Rowan for the first time, briefly, on the 2003 PBP.
