Well where to start.
I've always been into older stuff. My first car in '87 was a '64 Malibu. After I got married and we bought a house I finally had a garage to play in. We lived close to store we worked at so I would bike to work often. At the time I had a run of the mill mountain bike. It wasn't long before I wanted something more cruising friendly.
I got a Huffy 9 speed (schwinn frame rip off) from Kmart and was hooked on the cruiser style. That started my search of the 'net for parts to trick it out. At about the same time I start to gravitate to the older bikes. I even find some at garage sales and flea markets. This gets me started on the restoration path. I thought here is an affordable hobby that lets me play with vintage stuff. I always wanted to do this with cars, but that gets expensive.
skip forward about a year and I had a new job at a fabrication shop. The new job gave me access to all sorts of tools to restore bikes. I could use sand blasters and welders and torches - oh boy! I made myself a bike clamp/stand thing like they have in bike shops so I could get up off the floor when I'm working on my bikes. I mounted it on the wall of the garage and I could swing it up against the wall when I wasn't using it
So there I am putzing in the garage thinking I am maybe one of (heck it's a big world) maybe 20 -30 people doing this type of thing. Then I was on the 'net and searched for 'Kustom' bikes and not with a 'C' on the whim that I could possibly find some more obscure stuff by going a bit more underground.
That's when I found BR&K and I was hooked.
"I shouldn't be searching for just old bikes", I said to myself, "I need all the bikes I can get my hands on to make weird bikes!" I couldn't believe it, what a cool idea!!! I started grabbing everything I found. This worked out since my wife had the habit of telling me I just couldn't cut up any of the cool old ones.
So my first custom bike was what I thought was an original idea. I took the front of a girls schwinn, flipped it and welded it to a junk monark frame. I was all about the 'Limo' style, stretched and low. Right around then the chopper thing started.
My wife wanted a custom bike now too. So I started building her one with her helping me decide how she wanted it to look. That bike wound up being a mess. I hadn't thought of how to make it ridable. I just was happy to be building and being creative. I followed what my wife wanted and together we made an unridable turd on wheels.
Well I know what I need. I need a jig to build these things the right way. I made one from photos I saw on the net. Now I could measure things with more than just my eyeball. Here's my jig with Matthew my apprentice --
He like to hang out and build bike with me. He thinks it's the coolest thing.
Once I had the jig I was trying my hand at building my own bikes. There was less and less donor bike and more total hand made parts. My first bike was really two bikes welded together. My second (the Wifes) had pieces of donor frame and new hand bent tubing. I wanted to try doing one out of square tubing like ones I had seen on this new site I found 'Kustom Cruisers' on MSN. so this was my third--
Hanging out on KC led me to find CBN (chopperbicycle.net). That's where I got mad at the way someone on the board treated a young kid by promising him a bike, then abruptly backing out of the promise. I thought of how Matthew would feel if I did that to him and felt I needed to pick up the ball. A group of us on the site came together to help me with parts and I built this bike for him. It's my first totally from scratch bicycle --
I had this bike on the jig for about a year while we discussed on the forum how things were working out. I finally got it shipped to him just before last Christmas. That bike sort of burned me out for 'from scratch' building. I wanted to get back to having fun so I built a tall bike I called my big rig) to haul my pixie racer (which was covered in fur) when I went to the CanAm last year--
At the CanAm we Americans met our Canadian counter parts and struck up friendships in person with people we had on known thorugh the forums. It wasn't long after the FBM GHC hospitality that we decided to start our own FBM. With that idea the FreakBike Militia - Great Lakes was born. I've been having a blast with this hobby (dare I say-lifestyle?) and I don't think I will be stopping anytime soon. I now have another new job that has been keeping me out of the garage way more than I would like, but I'm still in there as often as I can.
In fact it was this sites BBO that has sorta brought me full circle - playing with old bikes again!
So there you have it. That's me.
I've always been into older stuff. My first car in '87 was a '64 Malibu. After I got married and we bought a house I finally had a garage to play in. We lived close to store we worked at so I would bike to work often. At the time I had a run of the mill mountain bike. It wasn't long before I wanted something more cruising friendly.
I got a Huffy 9 speed (schwinn frame rip off) from Kmart and was hooked on the cruiser style. That started my search of the 'net for parts to trick it out. At about the same time I start to gravitate to the older bikes. I even find some at garage sales and flea markets. This gets me started on the restoration path. I thought here is an affordable hobby that lets me play with vintage stuff. I always wanted to do this with cars, but that gets expensive.
skip forward about a year and I had a new job at a fabrication shop. The new job gave me access to all sorts of tools to restore bikes. I could use sand blasters and welders and torches - oh boy! I made myself a bike clamp/stand thing like they have in bike shops so I could get up off the floor when I'm working on my bikes. I mounted it on the wall of the garage and I could swing it up against the wall when I wasn't using it
So there I am putzing in the garage thinking I am maybe one of (heck it's a big world) maybe 20 -30 people doing this type of thing. Then I was on the 'net and searched for 'Kustom' bikes and not with a 'C' on the whim that I could possibly find some more obscure stuff by going a bit more underground.
That's when I found BR&K and I was hooked.
"I shouldn't be searching for just old bikes", I said to myself, "I need all the bikes I can get my hands on to make weird bikes!" I couldn't believe it, what a cool idea!!! I started grabbing everything I found. This worked out since my wife had the habit of telling me I just couldn't cut up any of the cool old ones.
So my first custom bike was what I thought was an original idea. I took the front of a girls schwinn, flipped it and welded it to a junk monark frame. I was all about the 'Limo' style, stretched and low. Right around then the chopper thing started.
My wife wanted a custom bike now too. So I started building her one with her helping me decide how she wanted it to look. That bike wound up being a mess. I hadn't thought of how to make it ridable. I just was happy to be building and being creative. I followed what my wife wanted and together we made an unridable turd on wheels.
Well I know what I need. I need a jig to build these things the right way. I made one from photos I saw on the net. Now I could measure things with more than just my eyeball. Here's my jig with Matthew my apprentice --
He like to hang out and build bike with me. He thinks it's the coolest thing.
Once I had the jig I was trying my hand at building my own bikes. There was less and less donor bike and more total hand made parts. My first bike was really two bikes welded together. My second (the Wifes) had pieces of donor frame and new hand bent tubing. I wanted to try doing one out of square tubing like ones I had seen on this new site I found 'Kustom Cruisers' on MSN. so this was my third--
Hanging out on KC led me to find CBN (chopperbicycle.net). That's where I got mad at the way someone on the board treated a young kid by promising him a bike, then abruptly backing out of the promise. I thought of how Matthew would feel if I did that to him and felt I needed to pick up the ball. A group of us on the site came together to help me with parts and I built this bike for him. It's my first totally from scratch bicycle --
I had this bike on the jig for about a year while we discussed on the forum how things were working out. I finally got it shipped to him just before last Christmas. That bike sort of burned me out for 'from scratch' building. I wanted to get back to having fun so I built a tall bike I called my big rig) to haul my pixie racer (which was covered in fur) when I went to the CanAm last year--
At the CanAm we Americans met our Canadian counter parts and struck up friendships in person with people we had on known thorugh the forums. It wasn't long after the FBM GHC hospitality that we decided to start our own FBM. With that idea the FreakBike Militia - Great Lakes was born. I've been having a blast with this hobby (dare I say-lifestyle?) and I don't think I will be stopping anytime soon. I now have another new job that has been keeping me out of the garage way more than I would like, but I'm still in there as often as I can.
In fact it was this sites BBO that has sorta brought me full circle - playing with old bikes again!
So there you have it. That's me.
