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The four best-looking bikes at Rampage were all painted by this Canadian custom shop

Fresh Paints of Whistler adds incredible detail to Sorge, Volokhov, van Steenbergen and Robert's rigs

Photo by: Kurt Sorge's Evil being upgraded by Fresh Paints of Whistler

There are a lot of riders rolling around on custom-painted frames, but some work stands out as clearly better than “just” a personalized colour scheme or nameplate. Four bikes at this year’s Red Bull Rampage feature paint work that is very clearly on a different level than the rest. All four, it turns out, were painted in Canada by Fresh Paints of Whistler.

To find out more about these four frames and the process of making them, we reached out to the humans behind the incredible work. That is Dylan Forbes, Mitch Gulliver and Justin Roy or, together, Fresh Paints of Whistler.

Details on van Steenbergen’s Hyper, fueled by Timmies like any good Canadian project.
Canadian MTB: How did Fresh Paints of Whistler get started?

Mitch Gulliver: We’ve all worked together on and off since we met. Dylan and I worked in a bike shop in St. Johns, Newfoundland and moved to Whistler in 2010, where we started working at another bike shop where we met Justin (Originally from Ontario). While working at the Summit, we started producing web edits and filming together in the bike park a lot. After that first season, two of Justin’s housemates left town and we moved in. It was a pretty sick setup. We lived together, worked together and filmed/rode together. All right next to the chairlift.

Over the next few seasons, we produced a ton of videos, working with brands like Raceface, Rocky Mountain, Chromag, and a couple more. We had a few top threes at the Crankworx Dirt Diaries and one win, so, that was a pretty awesome experience!
Eventually, Justin and Dylan continued their professional riding careers and I took a job at Pinkbike, doing the office and events thing working with brands on launches, content and advertising.

You all have quite a bit of experience in the bike industry. What made you want to start a custom paint shop, and what experience did you have with paint going into the project?

Working together in shops and in our small production company, we knew we had something going for us. We were creating great things and worked really well together.

During this whole time, Dylan had been painting his own helmets and customizing our bikes. He was always the artistic one, really. There was always that bit of conversation about how someone would pay good money for one of his painted lids! It just never really materialized.

Fast forward to early Covid times – Dyl and Justin decided to paint their current bikes…which turned out unreal. So, obviously, I got them to paint mine! That one also turned out awesome…shocker. After looking at those 3 bikes, and what they were able to create, Justin thought this was the time. “The boys should start painting bikes!”

The goal was just to do something we enjoyed and make people’s bikes and helmets look next level.

How long does it take to paint a custom frame take, on average?

We generally say 2 weeks to paint a frame. Every project is different, but that’s the ballpark. Something that’s super custom, like the bikes at Rampage this year, can take even longer.

Most projects take quite a bit of time chatting with the client to get their ideas and inspirations, then mocking up those ideas on a computer for approval, all before we even touch the frame.  The prep and finishing processes on a bike frame are time-consuming as well. We get in there to hand sand the OEM finish off the frame, bringing it down to a super smooth surface, ready for our primer layer. Any little ridge, bump or speck thats missed is going to show up in the final product! Then once the painting is done (which really depends on the complexity of the design), we clear the frame and sand it down to ensure every logo, graphic and paint layer is nearly imperceivable. Then we hit it with another coat of clear, sand it smooth with a few levels of ultra-high grit sandpaper and 2 stages of Compound and polish.

That whole process might take a painful amount of time, but it’s the best way to get an incredibly professional finish.

Do you only do bikes and helmets? Or do you do other custom work as well?

We for sure focus on bikes and helmets. That’s just the world we’ve lived in for so long. We’ve done quite a few things outside that box though. Guitars, skis, motorcycle tanks, goalie masks, we’re just here to make stuff look rad. If you want it custom painted, we’re willing to explore the options!

What was the process of designing the four Rampage bikes? Did you talk to the riders about the theme, or just present them with the plan?

Each of them was a bit of its own process. Tom’s for instance has a clear theme, he wanted Biggies Ready to Die album. We also had a general colour palette to work with, it was always going to be white/grey with candy red. Kurt’s on the other hand had more of a “vibe” for us to go off. He wanted something ocean/surf inspired. Dylan could do it almost completely freehand with the airbrush. That felt like it would be a pretty unique look, compared to the average paint job. William worked with the designers at Norco to come up with his design.

In every case, we worked with the rider in some capacity and developed a digital mockup to give them an idea of the direction we were going. Most of the time customers have a bit of direction for us. Whether that’s an album, their favourite team or an old bike they had as a kid, inspiration can come from anything and it just gives us a starting point.

We asked Fresh Paints to give us a bit more insight into the process and inspiration behind each of the four frames.

Alex Volokhov: Jordie Lunn “Snake Hole” Rocky Mountain

At least one of these bikes had to be conceived in a bar…at Crankworx. Alex had just recently gotten the word that he was in the big snow, and knew exactly what bike he wanted for it. He wanted a snake-themed bike, in black and grey tones with a nod to Jord somewhere in there. Right away we thought about Jord’s ROAM line “The snake just went into the snake hole.” It had to go on the bike.

The three of us threw around some ideas of the direction we could go…eventually settling on full snakeskin, with a snake graphic on one side of the headtube and Jord’s line on the other side. During the mockup stage, we decided there needed to be a bit of colour to make the bike really pop. Once we showed Alex the version with those candy red hits, he was in!

Tom van Steenbergen: Notorious B.I.G. Hyper

Tom knew exactly what he was looking for when we first chatted about painting a frame for Rampage. He wanted his favourite album, Biggie Smalls Ready to Die, and he wanted it to be grey and red. A great starting point.

After working through some ideas of design shapes that would work with his frame in mockups, we settled on the layout. Then we built off that, turning the originally grey area into a white/chrome marble texture and filling the red area with Biggie-themed graphics and lyrics from Tom’s favourite songs off the album.

Kurt Sorge: Oceanside Evil

We’d recently done a fresh Rockstar helmet for Kurt that was really ocean and mountain-inspired. It turned out sick! For his bike, he wanted something that followed that same vibe and maybe a bit more surf or ocean-inspired. After looking at a bunch of different mock-up ideas and directions, we got onto the idea of painting a full scene across the bike. His evil had pretty wide tubes, which is a bit of a must for something like this, so we mocked up some options.

Once we had a rendering done, we were sold. Kurt was into it, so we got to work. Most of the paint on that bike aside from a few stencils was freehand airbrushed. Dyl spent a ton of time on that one just shading, blending and even going in with a brush to put the white caps on the waves! It turned out better than we could have imagined!

William Robert’s Rampage-ready Shore. Photo: Norco

William Robert: Marble Norco

Will had sample photos for us right from the first email. He wanted a multi-tone grey marble, with a bit of gold in there and forest green Norco branding. We’d done marble effects in the past, honestly, it’s something we utilize somewhat regularly. This was a rampage bike though, so we wanted to do something a little different. We did some testing with hydro dipping to see what kind of results we could come up with…the results were good.

We put down the mid-grey as a base coat, then dipped each part of the frame in a large container full of water with a layer of two-tone grey paint floating on top. Once we had the coverage we were looking for, we went on dipping the gold by itself. That made sure we had the most control possible over the paint placement. The finish process of Will’s frame was for sure the longest. The hydro dip doesn’t leave a very smooth surface, so it needs a bit of extra care to get to the level of finish we’re known for.