Gun Control teams up with Chris Hall & Zero Lemon to raise money for Movember and the Pace Centre
Some of you might remember we helped Chris Hall paint his own bike last year which he then raffled off for charity, raising over 30k for good causes. The bike can be seen here, and was won by Zero Lemon fan, Adam Bradford.
When he asked us to help out again we knew we’d have to work harder this year to come up with an idea that would capture people’s imaginations even more than the first one did, so we got to thinking how we could bring more people into the project and have some fun with it.
We’d come up with a concept loosely based around a Piñata party. We’d hang a bike frame from a ceiling, and have everyone splash a bit of paint on the bike. Sounds simple, hey.
That presents more than a few problems. To get professional results Sam who heads up everything related to paint at Gun Control has to paint in a highly controlled environment, using chemicals which require respirators and masks.
To bring people into that wasn’t going to be possible, so we had to take the bike to the party, not bring the party to the spray booth.
The cleanest of workshop environments aren’t clean compared to a spray booth, so anything done outside of that environment runs some pretty big risks if you want a finish that lasts.
To make sure we could bring the idea to life, and deliver a bike that worked properly, looked great and lasted, we’d need to manage it tightly.
Sam prepped up Chris’s Cervelo supplied R3 frame in the usual way, in the clean paint studio environment. He based it up in white, with black logos, and flatted it back to give us a flat sound surface on which our guests could add some colour to.
To complicate matters, the paint systems we usually use are from the automotive trade. They’re very sensitive, and not at all safe for use outside of the paint studio, so we had to find something else.
Sam was aware of a range of paints from a team led bay Stuart Semple who specialise in water based paint formulations which can rival 2k systems for brightness and colour, and we selected their ‘Pinkest Pink’ and ‘Bluest Blue’ powder pigment products and got some in for testing. The paints arrived and they looked awesome straightaway.
Chris invited a load of his friends and sponsors, and we pressed on with organising a party in the middle of nowhere, on a chilly night in December…
We’ll let the result do the talking from here, in these awesome pics from Josh Gordon at @ridingbikesdrinkingbeer and Andrew Richardson @unearthmarketing @ndrewr . In the meantime, we’ll finish the frame and build the bike, and will make sure to be sharing further updates with you as the project unfolds and the raffle draw gets nearer.
To WIN THE BIKE in Chris Hall’s raffle head to this link now and buy a ticket.
Thanks to everyone that came on the night, and special thanks for the support from Cervelo, Shimano, Parcours, Schwalbe, Giro Cafe, Lucky Saint Beer and Brooks England for doing their bit too.
