When Steve Blick first told me he was going to London for the 2012 Olympics, I asked something along the lines of “are you excited?”. Being someone who travels all over the world for Oakley‘s “two wheels division”, I can imagine that being at the Olympics might be daunting. But not for Steve. In fact, he said he was most excited about riding around his new Beloved Imperial Works Morton Concept. Here’s a back story:

“It started with monsieur @blick wanting to have a great ride in London for three weeks, so we approached Slate at Rapha for a taker, not wanting to send it back across the pond. He eventually said they would support the project, the only brief: just make it feel like Rapha.

Well, @blick is about black, stealth, and we (Beloved) don’t usually do black, staying classic silver with components, but with Rapha, the games in London, we got the idea / concept for an Imperial Works Morton, the common thought = gold. So in our interpretation, we figured out the small gold bits per IW: plate our steel downtube bands and the badge; next what was to be black: the Paul bits (crank/brakes/rev.levers), ano the Nitto bits (stem/bar/post), Conti all black tires, Brooks saddle (of course an “Imperial” classic B-17) & leather tape, fenders, and of course black powdercoat; and lastly what was to stay classic silver: bolts, rails, spokes, nipples, headset – a stainless King, stainless Phil BB cups, and pedals found that nice balance. A little magic was born on doing build.

It will live in the new Rapha London Cycle Club post the games, perhaps used as the
store’s special “work bike” here and there.”

See more of this beauty below in a full photo gallery and a video that Steve made while in London.