wicked wrenching customs

Being a mechanic at Trek Toronto had it's perks. The owner Barry, was very invested in racing and had built up a reputable cross country race team. One of the most famed riders to come out of Trek Canada Racing was Emily Batty, who was picked up by the factory Trek team and has gone on to a very high profile racing career. 

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One thing that I really liked doing each year were the Toronto Bike Shows. There were two that we would attend- Spring and Fall. Sometimes one of Emily's current race bikes would be on a pedestal for show - a great way to strike up a conversation (and lead to a bike sale!). We would also have some of the previous seasons race bikes, and they would get cleaned up (any prototype components would go back to head office), and sold at the show. All the race team decals and name tags would be removed, so the only thing that would differ the ex race bikes from stock ones were the Project One paint schemes. 

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I did keep one of Emily's frames for myself, and when I moved back to Australia I was thinking of possibly starting up a Trek retail shop and re-building the frame to its former race spec to have on display but so far it's yet to happen!