Blast From the Past: Pimped Reader Ride from 2003

Editor’s note: The following reader letter appeared in Dirt Rag issue #116, published in February 2003.

Hey Dirt Rag,

Not too long ago, I decided that my perfectly good paint job of stock primer gray on my 2003 Bianchi S.I.S.S. was just too familiar. So in a quick decision, it was stripped, primed and painted again. This is my result, and I’ve had it this way for about five months now. Friends and fellow shop mates told me to send pictures to Bianchi to show them, but I thought you guys may appreciate them more.

It’s pretty rough looking due to my only using one can of clear coat, and basically having inferior supplies. I did all this with just auto spray paint, a Testors airbrush and Testors enamel paint. Not to mention the three fans I used to circulate the fumes produced by the highly carcinogenic automobile paint. It’s my own design I thought of while I should have been doing math homework, and the head tube features my official logo of Chaz the Penguin, who is throwing the horns in recognition of singlespeeds being awesome.

Well that’s it really, just tell me what you think and if you even plan to put it somewhere because that would be ridiculously cool. Ha, ha. Well, thanks for making the great mag. I’ll keep reading.

–Paul McIntyre
Purcellville, VA

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We’ve published a lot of stuff in 25 years of Dirt Rag. Find all our Blast From the Past stories here.