Silver Bootleg: Origins + Evolution
For 2024 Cinelli has introduced two new bootleg models – Tutto Mini Silver Bootleg and Zydeco Silver Bootleg – as well as entirely updated graphic concept for the cult sub-range of urban bikes that the brand has been producing for 20 years.
To understand the new concept a little background information is necessary…
ORIGINS
In 1994, responding to new and emerging relationships between urban subcultures and performance cycling (messengers on track bikes and psychedelic approaches to triathlon, to name two), Cinelli created an entirely new range of bicycles named Bootleg. A Cinelli Bootleg, as the name implies, was a bike that modified existing performance cycling equipment – from deadstock Campagnolo road groupsets to Columbus triple butted steel tubing to mountain bike suspension forks – to urban use. The resulting bike was ALWAYS all black, reflective, outside of any pre-existing category. Designs varied from, simply, the “blacked-out” performance road bike (early racing rats models) to mountain bikes retuned for all-weather urban riding (x rats with different sized wheels) to truly wild fantasies (the demented ZZ rats, rich in fringes and exotic leather fringes).
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early Cinelli Bootleg models.
Note the clear use of high performance components “stolen” from mountain biking and road racing
EVOLUTION
2024 sees the 30 th anniversary of the Bootleg range and we remain as enamoured as ever of the original concept and aesthetic BUT we felt the need to push the graphic concept even further.
Our goal was to create a Cinelli Bootleg aesthetic that answered two key needs:
- Paintwork that enabled the bike to “camouflage” itself amongst authentic bootlegs created over years of use and abuse and modification i.e. a bike that wouldn’t look out of place amongst old performance bikes from the 80s and 90s modified for urban use that populate every corner of the world’s biggest cities
- Paintwork that was particularly predisposed to the fast development of the patinas that characterize the most “accidentally beautiful” bootleg bikes in the world, patinas that are usually developed over decades of use. A new Bootleg livery, we though, should wear in like the best raw Japanese denim, creating wild patinas, whiskering and fading within only a few years of hard and authentic use…
Our answer to these needs was firstly to change the base colour of the bike from black to matte silver. The specific shade of matte silver simulates the look of a raw aluminium frame, echoing the aesthetic of stripped or sandblasted 90s mountain bikes repurposed for urban use as well as steel frames purposefully left raw in order to more rapidly develop patinas.
Second was the development of raised, 3-D, decals which are applied underneath the silver simulating the effect of a DIY spray can paint job applied directly to an already painted and stickered frame (a classic trick of both bike thieves and teenage bedroom artists). Third was the introduction of reflective details, another DIY classic of all-conditions urban riders. The fourth as the introduction a contrast colour hardware detail, in this case anodized orange headsets and seatpost clamps, simulating the kind of after-market upgrade often made by re-mod fans.
The result are two entirely new performance urban bicycles – the Zydeco Silver Bootleg and Tutto Mini Silver Bootleg – that in addition to being extremely fun and fast to ride through traffic have been painted specifically to blend in with the urban landscape rapidly developing a muted but unique beauty.
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