“Each time I create a new piece of art, I try to make it slightly different. I think that evolution is essential. Otherwise you end up like a musician who only plays their one big hit.” We had been chatting with Cento Canesio - street artist, graphic designer, writer and, perhaps most importantly, cyclist to find out more about what makes him tick. Even if you don’t instantly recognise his name, we’re pretty confident you would recognise Cento’s distinctive style. A mix of über-stylish patterns, shapes and text are complimented by bold colours and the inclusion of his trademark characters (some of which seem to have a punk x Snoopy feel to them.)
“My background comes from graffiti. I discovered skateboarding and graffiti at the same time - when I was around 15 years old. Initially I specialised in train graffiti – you know, train bombing, which was all done at night. For a long time, I did both skateboarding and graffiti at the same time, but then I realised that I was better at graffiti! I was fascinated by the sub-culture that went with both scenes. Around this time I also became immersed in the music that went with both skateboarding and graffiti – hardcore, punk and hip-hop. I grew up with all of those things, but finally, I was more focussed on doing graffiti.”
Image courtesy of We asked Cento about growing up in Treviso [a small town north of Venice] and how it helped crystalise his love of being creative. “Treviso is a small city, around 100,000 people, but the energy and the sub-culture of the people there was really, really strong in the past. It was different to other cities where every kind of sub-culture was growing separately. In the beginning it was different in Treviso because it was kind of altogether. It was like a bar, you know, and people went there to meet one to the other. And of course, to do something. Every single person put their own energy into the community. In the beginning, I saw a small magazine and inside it was like some music, some skateboarding, some graffiti and I saw everything altogether. I would say, oh, wow, I want to do those things because I love it, you know? It was love at the first sight.”
Image courtesy of Initially, Cento’s love of wheel-based sport came in two forms – he inherited a passion for kart racing from his father (and was ranked third in the Under-18s European kart championships at the peak of his racing career), but mainly it was his passion for skate boarding that shines through. “I can still picture when I got my first deck. It come from US and it was a Tommy Guerrero. I remember really clearly the sensation that I got when I did the first push on a skateboard. It was super energetic to me.” Cento’s love of cycling didn’t develop until much later, around 2007, and it was the fixie scene that first got him hooked. “The process of building up my first skate and building up my first fixie was pretty similar. And after the first push, I realised that the fixed gear bike gave me exactly the same energy that I got when I was pushing the first time on my skate, you know?”
After initially being hooked on fixed-gear bikes, Cento progressed to bike polo, road riding, gravel riding and bikepacking.“Really, the thing that I love to do most by bike is travelling. I started with long distance stuff, but then I went to shorter distances. The last few trips that I've done have been with my girlfriend and we carried the cooking stuff, the tent and everything else. In this way you really enjoy things, you know? The people you find along your way. You have time to really see the place. I think this is maybe the stuff that I love most right now.”
As Cento’s love of cycling grew and his reputation as an artist and graphic designer ballooned, he started to work with a number of brands from the bike world to create one-off or limited edition pieces. He has custom painted everything from road bikes to gravel bikes to cargo bikes to mountain bikes - each one having a distinctive, but individual look and feel to them.
We asked him how he had got from producing street art, into custom painting bikes? “To be honest, for me, it was a quite natural progression. Maybe because with graffiti, you can write on almost everything. It's nice to see things customised. For me was quite a natural to take a frame and to customise it. My first idea was doing one for me to use during the TCR#005 in 2017. I talked with OPEN and they were immediately in love with this idea and they said, okay, of course we want to give you a frame and you can paint it and you can go and use it in the TCR. For me, graffiti was born on the trains (or other things related to travelling) where people can see it. And if you paint a bike, it's more or less the same, you know? Now, it's different because you see so many custom painted bikes. It’s quite normal, you know? But in the past, it was really like, oh, wow! Most people back then just used classic colour paint with some stripes or just the fading.”
In 2025, we contacted Cento to see if he would be interested in a collaboration with us to produce a limited edition version of our RETURN bar tape. We asked Cento what he thought when we approached him? “One day I received a request from Seido to do something together and I was super happy because, Seido were really focussed on when they wanted and they asked for snakes. I was super happy for that because they say to me ‘We want a dog or a classical theme’. They understand that snakes are another thing that I do. Snakes are a big part of my style and it was also the perfect animal to put on a bar tape. We chatted about it and the request was like, maybe it could be like a snakes, all right? They said, okay, yeah, come on, go for it!”
Cento continued his story “I was super happy about this. A bar tape is not an easy canvas, because it's such a unique shape. We found immediately that there was a connection between what Seido wanted and what I can do. It was challenging to do. I tried to create the right shape with a printer to try and see how it worked. I’ve seen so many times on bar tapes where you see the logo, but it doesn’t work. Some brands position the logo and you have maybe on the right side, ten logos, but on the left side, there is no logo visible. The rhythm of some logos doesn’t work well. I tried so many times to make a fake [test] bar tape, to see whether it worked, and I really love the final version. The colour combination that they’ve done, I really like. I think that Seido had a really clear idea of what they wanted, but also they followed a lot of my ideas too. It was a great 50-50 combination.”
Our limited edition Cento x SEIDO RETURN bar tape comes in Black, Stone Grey or Terracotta Brown. You can buy it in all good bike shops, or from our webshop.
SEIDO Components
July 2025
By Olly Townsend