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About a year and a half ago, I sold what was a very popular and mainstream mountain bike and bought a boutique, handmade frame from a small workshop in the UK. I connected heavily with the people behind Starling Cycles and their all-meat-no-filler approach to building bikes that simply work, day in and day out, with minimal fuss. Their bikes also had character and style – a unique sense of personality that is increasingly hard to find in the massive, industry-leading brands. Simply put, I like the way steel bikes look and feel. Since it’s my full-time job and my primary pastime, bikes literally occupy most of my waking hours on this planet, and I’ve come to appreciate ones that simply get the job done and don’t require babying or time-consuming maintenance. For example, the Starling Murmur’s pivot bearings are held in with pinch bolts, similar to how your stem holds on to your steerer tube. When the bearings need replacing, simply loosen the bolts and the bearings pop out with your thumbs. For real…
It’s a bicycle – not a space ship – and fixing it can be that easy.
Furthermore, it rides GREAT. I’ve checked off more personal mtb goals on this bike than I ever thought possible. And no – a professional racer probably wouldn’t like it.
One of the nifty upsides of steel frames is that they’re relatively easy to repaint. Over the last few years, an old bike shop friend of mine from Richmond, VA has been developing a bicycle frame painting business on the side of other full-time pursuits. The intricacy of Grant’s paint work has really started to take off and after seeing some photos of recent projects of his, I knew it was time for a full refresh on the Murmur.
Around the same time, I was able to snag a set of the super hot, limited edition purple Hayes Dominion A4 brakes. The Dominions are my favorite that I’ve tried thus far and these are the second set of Hayes brakes that I now own. As soon as I got the purple brakes, I snapped a picture and sent them to Grant.
My text message to Grant read: “Make these things POP.”
Grant responded simply with nothing but the ‘handshake’ emoji.
I stripped the frame down, sad to see my primary bike out of commission for a while, but equally eager to see it get reborn.
I gave Grant the idea that I wanted some sort of white to purple fade (to match the brakes) and we discussed gold as a possible accent color to highlight some of the accents on our shocks and 110 bottom bracket.
I was not prepared for what I would get back a little over a month later.
Using a painstaking, handbrushed alcohol ink process, Grant turned this simple bike frame into a rolling piece of modern art. Grant’s description of the process:
“I had the old paint sandblasted, then I painted the front triangle white and started painting with purple alcohol inks to get the watery look.
It’s a process you can do with a paint brush and a little handheld air blower to move the inks around before they dry. Alcohol inks can be re-wettened, so you have a lot of time to move them around to get them to look the way you want.”
– Grant Fanning
Stunning. I’ve never seen anything like it.
eeWings are the only crank choice for a bike like this; they’re as bombproof as the frame itself. This bike build does wheelies over the graves of carbon fiber counterparts.
Drivetrain wise, Sram X01 Eagle mechanical works very well. Call me a luddite, but please don’t make me have to charge and monitor battery life on one more freaking thing! Here, I’ve paired the X01 shifter and derailleur with a cassette from the Polish brand, Garbaruk. Their cassettes are fully machined and incredibly lightweight without being exhorbitantly expensive.
Our company (under the name Dia-Compe USA at the time) introduced the modern threadless bicycle headset to the world in 1992. None of us would be here at Cane Creek without this humble, yet industry-altering innovation. My Murmur continues the legacy with a 110 headset, of course. Luxurious, high polish finish, stainless steel Hellbender bearings, and a 100% lifetime guarantee.
If you were a kid in the 90’s, you probably remember the popular ‘I Spy’ book series, where you had to hunt for specific tiny items, hidden in a sea of random clutter. I like to imagine that Grant hid a bunch of small white starling birds in the paintwork so that if you get tired mid-ride, you can always take a break and see how many little Starlings you can find…
How many can you find in this entire article?
Fun fact: A group of Starlings is called a ‘murmur.’
Starling builds their front triangles in Bristol, UK using legendary Reynolds 853 tubing. As far as steel goes, it’s very light and strong stuff. Starling uses brazing to join the tubes instead of TIG welding. They say the lower heat and bigger surface area of the joint produces one that’s more flexible (in a good way) and less likely to warp the tubing and cause misalignment issues. Plus, brazing is just classic and cool from a traditional framebuilding perspective.
This sticker was given to me by another steel bike hipster at a recent bike festival. #Helmyeah! Stick it to the man.
Our Tigon air-charged coil shock is almost tailor made for this frame. Tigon’s ability to offer amazing small bump sensitivity (aka GRIP) along with the bottomless feel and support of an air shock squashes a lot of possible criticisms of the simple, single pivot suspension design.
A simple formula:
(Starling + Tigon) = (cool & easy bike to live with + great suspension characteristics)
I’ve owned lots of mainstream, big brand bikes and they’re great! There’s no argument to be made that countless R&D hours and massive amounts of development time, money, and care went into them. But at the end of the day, something like this Starling gets me and most others that see the bike far more excited. I see this every time I’m out riding.
“Is that handmade?”
“Is that custom?”
“Wow, what kind of bike is that?”
It’s fun to see the curiosity in people’s eyes when they see something that’s out of the ordinary. Kids, adults, you name it. That childish sense of ‘WOW factor’ is often lost on mainstream products approximately 3 weeks after they’re released and that’s the cost of mass-popularization and homogeny.
I’m not saying this bike is better than a mass-produced one. I’m not saying steel is unequivicolly better than carbon. I’m not even saying you have to build something completely custom to have fun playing bikes.
What I hope this build instills in people is a realization that you don’t have to like what everyone else likes. You don’t need to buy what top professionals use to have a good time. All you need is a bike that works and works well, consistently. Durable, reliable components are at the core of this.
Perhaps this build will make another rider feel like they can have the confidence to think for themselves as well. Dream up something wild, I dare you.
You can start small by ditching your cheap plastic crank preloader.
Check out Starling’s handmade bikes here : https://www.starlingcycles.com/
Follow Grant’s artwork and bicycle escapades here, or hire him to paint your frame : https://www.instagram.com/gratstagram/
Go ride your own bike to the spots these photos were taken : https://www.trailforks.com/trails/big-rock-trail-7362/
