Riding bicycles has become even more important during the last couple of months. Commuting has increased dramatically and also - at least over here in Europe - you can see 3 times more cyclist in the woods. Cycling has become a lifestyle.

When we launched the original U.P. years ago, we started at the same time a program called "ready-to-paint". As you can see in the showcase on our website there are no 2 bikes that look the same. We wanted to go one step further than just customizing components and offered through a network of partners and painters the option to also customize the frameset. It is nice to give that control to our customers and because many also choose to work with their own local painter, even we are often surprised what comes out of it in the end. 

This has been very successful for us and you can always judge that by how many people copied that concept. But honestly we don't care, the really important thing is the joy that we have when we see new creations popping up somewhere on social media or in our showcase. The inspiration and motivation we get from that is priceless...

The designs changed over the years from simple designs to "a piece of art". I am sure you can remember one of my favourite OPENxART project the one from Cento an Italian graffiti artist. 

Watch his video and you understand it is not only about art it is about passion for cycling, dedication and making no compromises in life.



We want to go one step further now: Together with DT Swiss we are launching the "ready-to-paint" design competition. The purpose of this competition is to share the trend of individualisation of everyday objects to a broader audience. To do that, you can design and win your own custom painted OPEN/DT SWISS bicycle, a custom cycling jersey and a custom-designed Vitra Artek Chair.

In parallel we organize an exhibition hosted by Vitra where we invite 20 artists to show their custom painted OPEN bicycles. If you are the winner of the design competition you will be invited to that also. 

We will also create a coffee table book with those 20 artists that will not only show the bikes, but also the people and stories behind the bikes.
 
If you are interested in participating in the design contest you can find a full description as well as all relevant documents at: www.dtswiss.com/en/ready-to-paint.

And last but not least, yes, we will make that T-shirt available and we'll donate 100% of the revenue to a good cause, but more about that next week