Mosaic in Lemon Lime Fade

One of the things I still really enjoy about doing this is working with someone on their first custom bike.

The owner of this Mosaic came to us riding a hybrid with flat pedals, so this was going to be a pretty big jump. He also came in with a completely open mind, which made the process especially fun.

That's not to say we normally expect someone to walk through the door with a list of components they want us to bolt onto a bike. That's really not how we work. People certainly come to us with ideas and preferences, and we want to hear all of them, but ultimately our job is to understand how they ride, where they ride, and what they want from the bike, and then help them make the right decisions. We do this every day, and a big part of the process is trusting us to build the best bike for you.

In this case, we really were starting with a blank slate. We talked through everything, figured out what made sense for where he wanted to go with his riding, and eventually landed on a Mosaic GT-1 iAR with a full Campagnolo build and a decidedly performance-oriented setup.

The paint evolved the same way. He didn't come in knowing exactly what he wanted there either, so we worked through ideas together until we ended up with something pretty far from subtle: a modern two-tone lemon-and-lime theme that Mosaic turned into what they called Lemon / Lime Fade.

As soon as I saw the green and yellow coming together, it reminded me of the old Sierra Nevada Pro Team bikes. I always loved those bikes, so I sent the reference over to Mark at Mosaic as we were working through the design. We weren't trying to recreate one of them, but it became a cool reference point as the bike came together.

The best part, though, was what happened after we finished it.

This wasn't somebody who had spent all this time building his first custom bike only to become afraid of getting it dirty. He took it out for its first ride in the Headlands and brought it back covered in dirt and dust.

Which is pretty much exactly what we like to see.

For me, that's what made this particular project so enjoyable. Someone came to us without years of opinions about custom bikes, or even a picture in his head of what the finished bike should be, trusted us to work through all of it with him, and then went out and actually rode the hell out of the thing we built together.

Since we built this bike, Mosaic has renamed the GT-1 iAR the AR1 for 2026, but the idea behind it remains essentially the same: a fast all-road bike that's equally happy when the pavement ends.

Thanks for reading, and if you're thinking about a custom bike of your own, give us a call. Come with a completely blank slate or come with a head full of ideas. Either is fine. Our job is to listen to you, understand what you're trying to accomplish, and then use what we've learned from doing this every day to help build the best bike we can for you.

Build Spec