This article was originally published in the August-September 1997 issue of Cycle World’s Big Twin magazine.

Dave Perewitz, the legendary bike builder and painter from Massachusetts, is best known for his intricate paint schemes—beautiful flights of fancy that are at once intensely contemporary and instantly classic. The hallmark of his work has been kaleidoscope-like graphics brimming with a symphony of contrasting colors—until now. With his new creation, appropriately named Plain Blue, Perewitz has taken a sharp turn from the intricate to the elegant.

The paint job on Plain Blue is as rich and, well, plain as a starless, twilight sky. And why this simplistic approach? “Well,” says Perewitz, laughing through his thick Bostonian accent, “to tell you the truth, I thought this bike would look excellent on the pages of Big Twin.” He pauses a beat to see if we’re buying his story.

“And I wanted a different look,” he continues. “For me, the plain paint in itself is a real different look. Some people think the color is a straight blue until you start looking at it. Then, once you follow the lines, you see that they’re interrupted with light shades of purple. We went with that one-color theme to accentuate the bike’s rounded edges. It doesn’t have the square, whacked-off rear fender look. I’m not crazy about the tail-dragger style of fender; I like nice, clean-radius fenders. They make the bike more realistic to the average person who wants something that can be ridden and used.”