Nishikawa-kun from ELUSIVE came to me for advice on repainting his Cielo.
"It's getting pretty scratched up, so I want to get it repainted in the same color—do you have the decals? I'm going to ride this forever, so I'd like to do some rust-proofing if possible."
Ah, this is a simple, perfect request.
I have a tendency to want to show off my shallow personality by immediately repainting things in my own custom colors, but I’ve recently finally begun to learn that there is another way to approach products.
Of course, "originality-above-all" doesn't apply to everything. But if you truly understand the value of the philosophy and principles behind a product, you should be able to figure out the best way to handle the things you use for a long time.
It might seem a bit tedious, and there are geniuses who can grasp that intuitively without even thinking about it. For someone as slow to notice these nuances as I am, every time I get a request like this, I’m struck by it, and my understanding deepens. I am truly grateful for that.
On Rust-Proofing
You can't tell by looking at the real bike or in the photos, but underneath the original Cielo Blue is a rust-proofing method called Parkerizing. It isn't listed on Kyutai Paint's regular menu yet, but we can sometimes perform it when painting important steel frames, so please feel free to ask.
There used to be a shop specializing in classic Mercedes-Benz cars near where I lived. It wasn't a shiny showroom, but more like a local auto repair shop where good old Mercedes from another era were constantly being brought in for repairs. Many of the cars even had emblems on their front grilles signifying the mileage they had covered.
And there was hardly a single car there that had been eccentricized or updated in a modern way. Cars that, even after exceeding a million kilometers, continued to run with the same dignity they had in the past. There is a world that finds value in exactly that.
Seeing the Cielo repainted and reassembled, after so much time and money had been poured into it, reminded me of that scene.
Photo by Kosuke Nishikawa
Circles' paint division "Kyutai Paint"