A New Grimes Limited Edition

I dig the minimal RAW and CANVAS colorways the Grimes are available with. I like that you can see the raw carbon. And in the case of the CANVAS version, I like that they're all slightly different. And it seems a lot of you like them too. They have done well! But I get bored easily...

I've been wanting to do a much more "color-packed" version for a while now. So earlier this year we started working on a new Grimes paint job. Where we ended up with is something I'm excited to release as a new Grimes paint job. We're calling it... actually we don't have a name for it, but if you have any ideas, message us with what you think we should call it.

The New Design

When working on the new design, I was inspired by our California coastline here. The colors of waves crashing, the sunlight gleaming on the water, the blue skies - all of it blended together in my head.

I grew up in Chicago, far away from the ocean, so perhaps I'm still mesmerized by the "newness" of it. It still blows my mind every time I go to the beach and see the waves. When I tap into that feeling, the colors and fades on this paint job is what I visualize.

Aside from colors and fades, this new paint job also ended up getting a facelift in the design architecture (work in progress mockups above). Like always, it's a combination of functionality and aesthetics for me.

Paint jobs getting dinged up by rocks is a part of life for a gravel bike. The new design took that into account by blacking out any areas that are more prone to being dinged up - the inner stays, inner fork, down tube, back of the seat tube and even the head tube and top of seat tube (where the headset and seat post interact with the frame). While rock dings will still happen, at least they'll be less visible with this new functional layout.

There's a couple of new graphics throughout the frame. The hand-drawn Out There mark that was featured on our 14 kits is now on the Grimes. And an OTM callout is now hanging out on the top tube - Out There Machine.

Lastly, in a first for Franco, the down tube has a split personality. On the non-drive side you'll find the Franco logo. On the drive side, I wanted to pay homage to the original Grimes from 2015, and bring back the down tube Grimes logo. Some old school and new school in there.

I hope you dig the new paint job. This new paint edition is available now on any new Grimes. It's a $500 upgrade and adds a few weeks to the lead time.

This is also the first of a few paint jobs we have in the queue that we'll be releasing over the coming months. If you want a sneak peek at what's coming, just shoot us a message. We might be able to send over some sneak peeks!