Richard Pool’s Allied Alfa Disc Allroad with Hypercolor! – John Watson | The Radavist | A group of individuals who share a love of cycling and the outdoors.

Richard Pool’s Allied Alfa Disc Allroad with Hypercolor!
Photos by Bob Huff, words by John Watson

How do you make a special bike extra special? For Richard Pool, aka Bicycle Crumbs, he was sold on the Allied Alfa Allroad but wanted to jazz it up a bit. Richard works at the Vanilla Workshop – in case you were wondering who is doing all those snazzy new graphics! – so he consulted Lucas Strain, one of the painters at Coat, Vanilla’s in-house paint shop, on what to do with this frame to make it extra, extra special.

The result is the by-product of including Thermocramatic paint, over a raw Alfa. What this paint does is react with temperature and the easiest way to see this is by either putting the frame in a freezer, or rubbing an ice cube over it, but when Richard pinged Bob Huff, Vanilla’s photographer, he suggested cold water, sprayed from a hose on a hot day. Luckily they found normal garden hose water on a hot, hot summer day in Portland did the trick.

Is is gimmicky? You bet but does it look awesome, you bet! Coupled with this awesome bike, I think it turned out great. If you’d like a more in-depth look at the Alfa, check out our review!