Columbus
Mike Giant: Tattoo Artist, Illustrator, Cinelli Art Program
Mike Giant
In 2008, Cinelli met a San Francisco tattoo artist who rode a fixed gear every day. Two years later his drawings were on the walls of a Milan gallery. Then they were on the handlebars. Eighteen years on, he's drawn the Cinelli archive itself.
NewCinelli Icons by Mike Giant is out now.
The timeline
A meeting in California↓
Cinelli meets Mike Giant in the middle of the California fixed-gear scene. A friendship before a product.
Covers, posters and a carbon handlebar↓
Catalogue covers, posters, then the RAM Mike Giant Edition: his line work on the first integrated carbon bar and stem.
Tattoo flash on the bars↓
Velvet, Volée and Pro Race. The bar tape outlasts everything else and is still in the range.
A visit to Boulder↓
Cinelli films Giant at home in Colorado, talking about the RAM and his first years with Cinelli.
Off the bike↓
An apparel capsule, a Giro glove with three names on it, and the first jersey called Icons.
Cinelli Icons↓
Giant draws the Cinelli archive as a tattoo flash sheet. A T-shirt, a cap and seven Tutto Minis.
California, 2008. A meeting.
By the late 2000s, fixed-gear riding in California had its own riders, its own films and its own politics. Cinelli was close to it through its friendships with MASH and RVCA, and we were flying out more and more often to spend time with the people who were building that scene.
On one of those trips, in 2008, we met Mike Giant.
Giant grew up between Upstate New York and Albuquerque, where he later studied architecture. He came out of graffiti and skateboarding, and by the mid-1990s he was one of the key figures of the San Francisco underground. By the time we met him he was a well-known tattoo artist spending more and more of his time drawing. He also rode every day, and he cared about fixed-gear bikes: what they stood for, and the kids who rode them.
It started as a friendship. The products came later.
Milan, 2010. Welcome to Frisco.
On 25 February 2010, a contemporary art gallery in Milan opened Welcome to Frisco, Giant's first solo show in Italy. It was curated by Silvia Girardi and ran until 10 April.
Everything on the walls was new, and everything was black and white. Women riding bikes through the city. Religious and symbolic imagery. Views of San Francisco. A film about his life by his friends Colin Arlen and Sean Patrick played alongside the work, and a bilingual catalogue carried a text by the critic Luca Beatrice.
For Milan, it was an introduction to Giant. For Cinelli, it was where the work together began.
Covers, posters and a carbon handlebar
The first things Giant made for Cinelli were printed: catalogue covers and posters. Then Cinelli handed him the RAM.
The RAM was the first integrated carbon bar and stem, with the tops, the drops and the stem moulded as one piece. It was about as technical as a Cinelli product got. The RAM Mike Giant Edition covered it in his line work and came out as a limited run.
A tattoo artist's drawing on a carbon race cockpit wasn't how component brands did things. Cinelli did it anyway, and the same graphic later moved across to the RAM 3.
Tattoo flash on the bars
Bar tape was the obvious next step, and it has outlasted everything else. The drawing is Giant's San Francisco version of old tattoo flash symbols, made for Cinelli and used nowhere else.
It first came on Velvet tape, in black and red, then on Volée Ribbon in gold. From the tape it spread to grips, pedal straps, a carbon bottle cage and an Ass Saver.
It's still in the range. Today you'll find it on Pro Race, our lightest tape at 1.8mm.
Boulder, 2015. A visit.
By 2015 Giant was living in Boulder, Colorado. That January, Cinelli went to see him at home and filmed him talking about the RAM and his first years with Cinelli. Eleven years later, it's still the clearest account of how it all started.
Off the bike
In 2018 the drawings left the bike. Giant drew a full apparel capsule: a black hoodie, a T-shirt, a musette and a Super Deluxe cycling cap, handmade in Italy with gold print and an embroidered logo. Giro came in with a version of its DND glove in black and red, three names on one glove. Then came a Made in Italy jersey, with raw-edge sleeves, a reflective stripe and a cap to match. Cinelli called it Icons. Hold on to that name. More on that below.
2026. This time, Giant drew us.
Cinelli Icons takes the Cinelli archive and lays it out like a tattoo flash sheet: the Laser frame, the 1A stem, the Unicanitor saddle, frame lugs, the Bat handlebar, a bottle, the Integralter, the RAM and the original bar tape. In the middle, his coiled snake wraps around the winged C.
Look closely and you'll find two things he's drawn before. The RAM. The bar tape. Eighteen years after that trip to California, they're back in his hand, this time as part of the archive.
The artwork runs across a T-shirt in 155gsm organic cotton, a cotton cycling cap on our Drifter shape, both screen-printed in Italy, and the whole frame of a Tutto Mini, our compact 20-inch city bike.
There are seven complete bikes worldwide, plus a small run of framesets, built with Paul Components brakes and stem, White Industries cranks and headset, Maxxis Holy Roller tyres and a Cinelli Volare saddle.
Of all the collaborations I've done over 30 years as a professional illustrator, my projects with Cinelli have been the best. Their execution of my ideas always exceed my expectations. It is a great honor to work with the finest bicycle company in the world (and ride their bikes too).
Mike Giant
Cinelli Icons.
The artwork, the interview and the full collection, in one place.
Sources: Cinelli company archive; Welcome to Frisco exhibition materials (Milan, 2010); Winged Store; The Radavist.
