Anodizing

We offer anodized graphics and custom artwork on all of our frames, forks and custom titanium stems, racks, seatposts, and cranks.

We can also refinish any titanium frame or componentry.

How it Works

Our process starts by exploring your aspirations or gathering inspiration. Either way, we work together to create a design that makes our bike uniquely yours. These finishing touches range from adding names, phrases or small silhouettes to full-bike designs. Anodizing can include either brushed or bead blasted finishes and we make recommendations based on color preferences and desired effect. Typically after the brainstorming phase, we’ll move onto applying the ideas to a frame drawing to create a visual for the ideas and ensure size and spacing works well around couplers and braze-ons. We’ll confirm color choices, finish preferences and cost.

Cost for custom anodizing varies depending on the complexity of the design and amount of masking required. The simplest designs i.e. names, sayings, silhouettes start at $100-$150. As the complexity increases, prices increase too, with full-bike, multi-layer or multi-finish costing upwards of $2,500.

multiple examples of titanium bicycle frame anodizing by cycles chinook
emily lafferty of cycles chinook showcasing a custom headbadge and frame anodization options

If there’s uncertainty how a design, finish or color combination may look, we can test designs on smaller sample tubes or titanium plates. Our goal is to bring your vision to life. We’re always happy to provide some suggestions, but we center this process around discovering your unique interests, experiences, and tastes.

Interested in our design services?

Color and Finish Options

We can anodize colors anywhere from bronze to turquoise green, that’s about 10v to 100v. You can choose a solid color or fade that includes several colors along the spectrum.

cycles chinook : titanium anodization color chart

That said, there are some obvious and less obvious limitations. Anodized titanium can only include the colors seen in the chart. There is no red, for instance. Additionally, the higher the voltage color the more we recommend a bead blast finish to ensure a nice crisp design.

The finish is the second option to decide. Brushed or bead blast are the two options we currently offer. These two finishes offer different aesthetics but can be used in a variety of ways to create a “best of both worlds” option for specific designs.

Matching Components

Lastly, it’s important to build out the whole look. Matching and coordinating headsets, seat collars, brake rotors, bar tape, and pedals help finish off the overall look. Again, there are important things to consider when choosing your color kit.  First, we don’t anodize red. Unlike aluminum, we can’t anodize certain colors. Additionally, anodized aluminum doesn’t exactly match anodized titanium. Blues are very close, purples and golds are pretty close, and oranges vary quite a bit. That said, being monochromatic isn’t everything and playing around with color combinations is part of the fun. While your frame is in production we walk you through options and ideas to build out the full-color kit. 

More questions? Have an idea or a titanium bike you’d like to refinish? Feel free to contact us.

cycles chinook : orange and gold example
cycles chinook : blue with gold bits example