Reliability, and ease of maintenance were top of Rich’s priorities for this build which is why together we came up with this stainless steel, belt driven single speed.
The stainless steel Columbus tubing has no trouble dealing with the dreary wet winters we receive here in London. It won’t rust when it gets wet and it’s incredibly strong so completely dependable. We still wanted to make this bike unique without adding complexity so we introduced the bi-laminate head tube for the straight 1-1/8″ fork steerer. It is constructed first as you would a normal frame with a single stainless head tube which we then cut away at the front leaving a large hole to be filled by sliding in a second stainless head tube and brazing the two into one using a silver filler material. In the same way as lugged bicycles are built, we use capillary action using heat in a controlled manner to evenly distribute the silver and permanently fix the tubes together into a single piece. The inside tube has been left unpainted in its raw, satin finish stainless steel form with a colour matched head tube badge for contrast.
A split in the right seat stay allows the belt to fit through the rear triangle. Single speed gear size options are limited for the belt drive and to get a good road ratio on the 22 tooth freewheel, we needed to spec the huge 70 tooth front sprocket for which we made a cutaway in the chain stay for clearance.

With the simple, clean aesthetic of the single speed belt drive, Rich didn’t want the paint scheme to take anything away from that overall look by being too busy. He opted for this gradual two tone gloss fade in organic green to teal colours.
To showcase the frame material, we left the stainless steel chainstays uncovered and the Saffron logo is polished and brushed to match. The unique bi-laminate headtube is left unpainted and our usually polished head badge got a lick of colour matching paint, an inversion of our other bikes.

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