JB and I have been best friends for almost 40 years…The joy ride of being his cycling mate warms my heart, stimulates my mind and cleanses my soul…It also puts a giant smile on my face…
Joe Bell, besides being a great athlete, a terrific husband and dad, and a first-rate business entrepreneur, is an un-paralleled artist… —Bill Walton
I love my bike !!! Not the least of reasons why, is that I love the way it looks…I love beauty !!! It makes me feel good… I love color, I love precision, creativity and imagination, and I love detail.... Riding my bike makes me high…My bike takes me places I can’t get to on my own, both physically and spiritually…The places I want to go are naturally beautiful…And that is one of countless reasons why I love Joe Bell---because he paints my bikes, and that makes me happy…
JB and I have been best friends for almost 40 years…The joy ride of being his cycling mate warms my heart, stimulates my mind and cleanses my soul…It also puts a giant smile on my face…Joe Bell, besides being a great athlete, a terrific husband and dad, and a first-rate business entrepreneur, is an un-paralleled artist…
Like an orator whose voice is an extension of his mind; like an athlete who sees the flow, seams and the path forward before anyone else; like a drummer who feels and exudes the beat; Joe is a painter whose humanity and vision emanate seamlessly from his fingers…
Joe Bell adds depth, softness, and empathy to other people’s hopes, dreams and aspirations…
Joe is an intuitive artist---who listens (like Tchaikovsky)…He’s an existential scientist—who ponders and contemplates (like Archimedes and Galileo)…JB is a creative visionary---who anticipates the future long before it ever comes to be (like Leonardo)
In the 4 decades that Joe Bell has been practicing, experimenting and perfecting his wondrous skills and craft, lots of things have changed…His materials, equipment, and surfaces have evolved…Sensible health and safety concerns have driven new creations of extremely high quality paints…Technological advances in metallurgy, imaging, spray guns and sandpaper have allowed Joe to take his finished product to unimaginable levels of inspired brilliance…
But the daunting challenges of the round tubes and incredibly tight places on a bike frame remain forever more…
And in a world of the increasing demands of customers like me who live in the realm of “if I can think it, then Joe Bell can paint it”, he’s faced with the conundrum of instructions to “make it like the Sistine Chapel, depicting the history of the universe through the prism of Copernicus, Einstein and the Grateful Dead”…or “I want my bike to look like the Grand Canyon”…And then the task of “transposing the vast spectrum and ever-changing color schemes of Death Valley to my Bill Holland titanium and carbon fiber exo-grid”…
But this is all what makes Joe Bell so special…He will listen; he will contemplate; he will ruminate, machinate, castigate and calculate; and then he will create…
Joe Bell’s been doing all this majestic production in the same location now for 30 years, on the lower southern slopes of Mt. Helix, just east of San Diego, my hometown … This power spot and window to the heavens is the perfect locus in the geography of genius that defines JB’s life, product and our world…
Joe Bell does all this pretty much by himself, although he does admit to an occasional fractional contribution of human assistance…
So when you find yourself waiting impatiently to get your bike back from Joe, please understand that he puts everything he has into every paint job that he ultimately accepts, sometimes putting up to 40 hours into a single bike…
And then there’s the occasional sidetrack for Joe, like when I ask him to paint our massive outdoor-patio family-dining table and its serving spinner… All I wanted was a mural of the history of Western Civilization according to Lewis and Clark, John Muir and Jerry Garcia…This masterpiece ultimately did get the official Grateful Dead Seal of Approval…
Plus Joe has to ride his bike too—come on !!!
Faith and patience, folks…All good things in all good time…And when it finally does get done, I guarantee you’ll be very happy…If not, please give me a call…I’m in charge of Joe’s customer relations and satisfaction…
I promise to get right back to you, after I put my beautiful bike away for the day…
Thanks Joe Bell…I love my bike; and I really love you !!!
—Bill Walton
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