Specialized lead designer Erik Nohlin has created a custom brakeless bike design for the Red Hook Crit race for the American bicycle brand’s riders, Colin Strickland and Aldo Ino Ilesic.
The bespoke bike boasts a design inspired by famed Italian architect Ettore Sottsass, the founder of the iconic Memphis Group, which was a postmodernist art collective that changed the art and design world forever when it began in the 1980s. Sottsass and the Memphis Group essentially broke all of the rules and taught designers to creatively leap out of the box. Now, Nohlin has done exactly that with the Specialized RHC Milano collection of bikes.
The most recent installment of the Red Hook Crit Milano custom bike, the RHC Milan Allez, explores colors, shapes, and textures in a unique but also sacred way, depicting Nohlin’s dedication to the Sottsass-inspired bicycle.
When looking at the ornately painted details of the bicycle, from primary colors, to marble, and even to woodgrain aesthetics, it is clear that Nohlin spent more than just a few hours in the paint shop to create the Milan Allez bike. The Specialized riders even boasted racing gear in matching liveries that they wore during the Red Hook Crit.
