Photos and words by Tom Warmerdam
I saw a Rossin Olympic for the first time in 2016 and was instantly in love. This was a whole new bicycle shaped canvas to play with and I was eager to see what I could come up with. I’d already been exploring lines and slots on my other frames but this new canvas could take that to a whole new level.
I wanted my version to be visually brutal but elegant. So after designing many variations of the webbed plates I sat down and selected my favorite. Then it was time to start. I do all my own work, I don’t outsource anything. So I programmed my old CNC machine and made the plates first. Then the dropouts. I then made a frame to fit and put it all together. I didn’t like how the old Rossin was put together… lots of filler, that’s just not my style. So I brazed in the plates with silver to reduce the chance of heat distortion on the thin-walled tubes. This is a lot more work but also much more satisfying.
But then there was a long pause… partly because I had to focus on my customer’s frames but also because I wanted to use my own fork design based on Max ( I actually based it on Reynolds Speed Stream fork blades as they don’t change shape when you cut them to length) style aero blades. My friend Anna Schwinn had already helped me to translate my 2D drawings and sketches of a fork crown into a usable 3D model (I could not have done this part without her, she was awesome). Then it was a long wait for the molds and castings to be made. They arrived last month so it was time to finally finish it.
Check out more photos of this unique frame below and follow Demon Frameworks on Instagram!
