jamesdak 

So this popped up on Ebay a couple of weeks ago from a local seller. Claimed it was built by the man, the myth, the legend David Kirk! Checked over on Paceline and the sale had been shared there and David had posted confirming he made it. So game on! Now the bike cave is way overflowing as of late and the bike budget was shot. But I've always wanted a David Kirk yet couldn't justify the cost. So I made a modest bid on this fully expecting to lose out. Then the morning the auction was ending my son came over with his mountain bike wanting me to work on it. So as this auction ended I was out in the garage freezing my butt off working on his Marin. My boy was inside, warm and toasty. Well, long story short I had the auction up on my laptop when he came over. I'm out working on the bike and he's inside bumping up my bid without telling me. Little bugger! Well, surprisingly it didn't sell for no where near what I figured and I won the auction!

The seller was the ex owner of Fishlips Cycles. Said he talked David into making this one and another one that was much larger. The larger one went to someone in Vegas. Then he said this bike was painted by Dave Kindig of Kindig It Designs. A local custom car builder that actually has a show I used to enjoy on TV. Haven't seen it since I cut the cord. So to me this is a double score.

Seller was super cool and met me halfway to deliver the frame. It came with an installed Cane Creek headset, Ultegra brakes, and a stem and handlebars. Frame shows plenty of honest cosmetic wear yet the superb quality of both the build and the paint job still shine through. I'm getting around 56.25 cm CTC for the top tube and 55.75 cm CTC for the Seat tube with a quick measure yesterday. Seems to be a fairly relaxed angle on the seat tube also. I threw on a saddle and wheels to make it easier to move it around as I gave it a quick clean and polish. Gotta do a little searching here to find the match for GIOS blue which is what the seller said the color was. Want to do a little touch up before I build it up. Right now I'm thinking silver parts with white cable housings, saddle, bar tape, etc. I've got a Chorus or Record 10 speed groupset on hand as well as a nice Dura Ace 7400 series 8 Speed STI groupset I could use on this. I guess I have to decide between this and the Olmo frame in terms of what get's what.

My understanding is that this would be a first half of the 90's build.

Anyway, some quick pics I grabbed outside on a cold wintery day here.


Going to be able to use a zero setback seatpost on this one.

I do have the adjusters also, took them out to clean.

Is it crazy to get excited over a BB

Fishlips Headbadge. Part of me says keep the decals and part says take 'em off.

The shine does not come through in the pics.

Sexy, sexy, sexy!

Nice detail

Mmmmmmmm.....

So nice!

From da rear!

rhm

I like the white lining. Don't think I ve seen that before. I would not mess with the decals, they are pretty cool.

rhm

I like the white lining. Don't think I ve seen that before. I would not mess with the decals, they are pretty cool.

Kabuki12

That looks cool. I watched Kindig on tv and he did high end customs. His paint jobs looked awesome on the show.

Sir_Name 

Nice score, that looks great! The lug lining is a neat touch. I personally wouldn’t touch the decals. Enjoy!

xiaoman1 

Beautiful bike, sometimes putting that low bid in and not expecting positive results yields surprising a result....you are one lucky DAWG!
Best, Ben

jamesdak 

Right?! Last time I lucked out like this it was a NOS Trek Y-Foil mislisted on Ebay. Only bidder at the minimum bid, score!

jamesdak 

Well, just a little update. I had goggled for a paint match to the Gios Blue and saw more than one posters state the Sinful Color's Endless Blue nail polish was a perfect match. Started repairing chips and such with it last night and then more today. It is most certainly very, very close. Even though I'm just dabbing it on now mainly to build the chips it's really hard to spot the touched up areas from even a foot or less away. Took it out on the deck into the sunlight and the repairs still looked great. Once I get everything built up I'll let it dry for a long time, wet sand them a bit, and then polish them up.

jamesdak 

We got a pretty good storm with lots of wet snow. Wore myself out shoveling it since it was too wet for the snowblower. So instead of riding on the rollers today I'm doing some more bike work. Still building up the touch up paint on the Fishlips but I also decided to pull the decals. The missing letters with others starting to come up were bugging me. Looks pretty good with the clean look I think.



Now on to the Y-Foil. Rear Spoke broke while it was sitting and it's replaced now. Need to clean the cassette up, mount it, and then put the tire back on and mount it up.

Was hoping to cable the Stella today but the housing didn't arrive as scheduled.

jamesdak 

So starting to proceed with this. Bought some used silver rims and they're looking really good once I cleaned off the adhesive from the removed labels. Now to find the right Campagnolo freehub to convert these. What really surprised me was that there is room on this frame to run the larger than size Continental GP 4000s II 700x28 tires.

The plan is to stick with the pretty much mint Daytona 9 speed setup I found. I've got a slightly shorter -17 silver stem on order for this one too to get the handlebars where I need. Thinking white cable housing and then need to decide if I'm going for white or black bar tape and saddle. I'm leaning towards white.







This is the seatpost I'll most likely use. This morning it was totally trashed with a badly tarnished, scratched, and gouged surface. A little wet sanding, a little steel wool, a little polish, and now it's got a mirror like shine where it matters.

TourdeTRex

Great looking bike! So pretty I had to dig out the other rumored frame. Your history is mostly correct. Tom and I had the frames built by Kirk in 2004. Fishlips was around in the 90s and then Tom bought the name in the 2000s and tried to resurrect it. I was engaged to get married and figured this might be the last nice thing that I buy myself for many years. (Which has been proven true.) Got the frame, got married, moved to Vegas. It’s sat in a bike bag ever since. I’m 6’6” and the frame is a petite 64 cm. I’ve never gotten around to building it up. Just haven’t had the time or finances to give it the attention it deserves. Would be open to offloading it at this point if you know anyone that might be interested.


Here’s the custom Fishlips Co-motion that I put 35 miles on this morning, also ordered through Tom.

Edit: apparently I can’t post photos until I’ve posted 10 times.

jamesdak 

Picture assist on the other Fishlips.

TourdeTRex

Thanks! Some day I’ll hit my required 10 posts! It’s funny that I can’t even quote reply to this without deleting the photo.