F40/M50 stool

Fig40, Toronto Photography: Walter Lai

A passion for craftsmanship and a passion for cycling is what brought Mariposa Bicycles and Fig40 together for this project. Built to celebrate Mariposa’s 50 years of constructing bicycle frames using traditional “lugged” steel — a process with little or no tube bending and all joints created by welding steel tubes together with a cast steel lug — the stool is built using traditional bicycle parts such as lugs, tubing and paint in the Mariposa workshop. Both the crown and baseplates at the top of the stool are made in a local Toronto workshop, and the pieces are joined using a brazing process with brass filler metal to create a strong permanent bond. The stool sits at bar height, and actual bicycle frame lugs are used to make the lower footrest connections in the frame. Horizontal coloured bands, inspired by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) world champion jersey colours, are spray-painted by hand with a special bicycle paint and later baked on to give strong scratch resistant finish, then topped with a varnished oak seat.