So I was bored the other night and googled my name and the word chopper to see what came up and a couple images of bikes I did and posted came up along with images from my old flickr account and was amazed by the amount of bikes I had uploaded plus a landscape photo that I had edited that I thought I had lost forever, it got me thinking just how many bikes I have bought built and sold and why we do what we do, the why is easy and hard at the same time, easy because we love bikes from the basic "yer bikes are cool" to the extreme "I'm a bike freak, I'm obsessed with bikes"which is what I normally say although I may think I have a large amount of bikes and parts which I certainly do and in my country of 5 million I may indeed be at the top for shear volume of privetely owned stuff I know I'm no way near some collections especially you guys in the U.S that have truck trailers full of stuff, I'm interested in brief stories of how you guys got into (or like me born) into bikes and does anyone know whether any books have been published about average guys and their bikes, I have books on graf artists, hotrod guys and tattoo artist explaining their love of what they do, these aren't famous people just Joe average dudes and dudettes, so if you are inclined to spill your story when you have a lazy Sunday let's hear it.
Hello my name is Ryan Branson I was born in New Zealand grew up in England did a couple years in the U.S and back to New Zealand, I got on a bike maybe around three years old and never really got off, I was just fascinated with bikes I don't even know why just am, started with a bike that I don't remember as I was too young but remember a string of Raleigh bikes, a striker then grifter and then the chopper black with priszmatic stickers and exhaust sticker on the chain guard, I believe the black choppers were english market only and very rare now, I thrashed that chopper to death until its ultimate demise of I believe a broken back wheel (or did I try to fix the gears and failed) I was maybe 12 years old, so dad bought me a Puch branded road bike bright red with white seat, bar wrap and cables, within a day I had flipped the drop bars up so I could pull wheelies much to dad's disappointment, after a few years of maintaining the roadie (and dad buying me a 1979 vespa 50 special, best scooter in the world but that's another story) and it getting old and raggedy I sanded it down, enter my first customising experience, I put bog/bondo in the corners of the frame to smooth it out, I think I saw a flash road bike in a magazine with aero style frame, for some reason and to this day I don't know why but I cut the drop bars so short that I could only fit the brake lever and grips on they were that short I had to kind of over lap where the brake cable/barral adjusters were, yes they were that short, maybe just over a foot wide, imagine clamp bulge, brake lever then grips with no gap in between, to this day I don't understand why I did that, I hadn't seen it done anywhere so maybe it was a first.
Moving on to when I went to U.S 1988-1991ish was living on an airbase in New Mexico, I kind of bummed around abit and admittedly was lazy after my hiphop/bboy/graffiti/bike days of England, but one day a naigbour was selling an old brown ten speed I think $50 I hassled my sister for cash and got the bike around the same time I came into a small amount of cash can't remember how thought, so off to town got a pair of straight bars/levers/Shimano rear derailleur and one can of black and white each, proceeded to strip sand and repaint the frame white fade to black white front wheel black rear wheel reassembled with new parts, saw the naigbour a week later and he said wow that's a cool as bike but what happened to the bike I sold you, you can imagine his surprise when I told him it was his old bike, moving forward and now living in my home country of New Zealand, for a few years I really just had a couple of bikes that I rode and when I met my future wife her brother was into bikes so things started to really happen with several trips to the town dump raiding the scrap metal section, you could picture me riding home with 4 wheels gingerly hanging from my handlebar, some forks sitting on the top tube and a frame slung over my head and body like a courier bag, fast forward a little bit and married with 4 kids and 2 grandchildren living in the same city for nearly 27 years and created my own beautiful bike empire, you know its serious when you buy a whole bike just for that fat white vinyl spring seat or that black vinyl diamond pattern spring roadbike seat, as I've mentioned in other posts I've sold bikes I love to help with bills or to put some extra food on the table but I do buy cheap bikes to on sell for profit but they all get stripped, cleaned, greased, parts replaced where needed, nuts and bolts torqued correctly, my rule is I wouldn't sell any bike myself or my children wouldn't ride, I am blessed to have some friends that love and appreciate my work and trust me with their family bikes to overhaul or repair, how do I explain my love of bikes? I really can't other than this is what I was born to do, my wife laughs every time I watch a show or movie and there's a bike in a scene I'm like "oh wait what type of bike is that."im a bike freak yes I am indeed
Hello my name is Ryan Branson I was born in New Zealand grew up in England did a couple years in the U.S and back to New Zealand, I got on a bike maybe around three years old and never really got off, I was just fascinated with bikes I don't even know why just am, started with a bike that I don't remember as I was too young but remember a string of Raleigh bikes, a striker then grifter and then the chopper black with priszmatic stickers and exhaust sticker on the chain guard, I believe the black choppers were english market only and very rare now, I thrashed that chopper to death until its ultimate demise of I believe a broken back wheel (or did I try to fix the gears and failed) I was maybe 12 years old, so dad bought me a Puch branded road bike bright red with white seat, bar wrap and cables, within a day I had flipped the drop bars up so I could pull wheelies much to dad's disappointment, after a few years of maintaining the roadie (and dad buying me a 1979 vespa 50 special, best scooter in the world but that's another story) and it getting old and raggedy I sanded it down, enter my first customising experience, I put bog/bondo in the corners of the frame to smooth it out, I think I saw a flash road bike in a magazine with aero style frame, for some reason and to this day I don't know why but I cut the drop bars so short that I could only fit the brake lever and grips on they were that short I had to kind of over lap where the brake cable/barral adjusters were, yes they were that short, maybe just over a foot wide, imagine clamp bulge, brake lever then grips with no gap in between, to this day I don't understand why I did that, I hadn't seen it done anywhere so maybe it was a first.
Moving on to when I went to U.S 1988-1991ish was living on an airbase in New Mexico, I kind of bummed around abit and admittedly was lazy after my hiphop/bboy/graffiti/bike days of England, but one day a naigbour was selling an old brown ten speed I think $50 I hassled my sister for cash and got the bike around the same time I came into a small amount of cash can't remember how thought, so off to town got a pair of straight bars/levers/Shimano rear derailleur and one can of black and white each, proceeded to strip sand and repaint the frame white fade to black white front wheel black rear wheel reassembled with new parts, saw the naigbour a week later and he said wow that's a cool as bike but what happened to the bike I sold you, you can imagine his surprise when I told him it was his old bike, moving forward and now living in my home country of New Zealand, for a few years I really just had a couple of bikes that I rode and when I met my future wife her brother was into bikes so things started to really happen with several trips to the town dump raiding the scrap metal section, you could picture me riding home with 4 wheels gingerly hanging from my handlebar, some forks sitting on the top tube and a frame slung over my head and body like a courier bag, fast forward a little bit and married with 4 kids and 2 grandchildren living in the same city for nearly 27 years and created my own beautiful bike empire, you know its serious when you buy a whole bike just for that fat white vinyl spring seat or that black vinyl diamond pattern spring roadbike seat, as I've mentioned in other posts I've sold bikes I love to help with bills or to put some extra food on the table but I do buy cheap bikes to on sell for profit but they all get stripped, cleaned, greased, parts replaced where needed, nuts and bolts torqued correctly, my rule is I wouldn't sell any bike myself or my children wouldn't ride, I am blessed to have some friends that love and appreciate my work and trust me with their family bikes to overhaul or repair, how do I explain my love of bikes? I really can't other than this is what I was born to do, my wife laughs every time I watch a show or movie and there's a bike in a scene I'm like "oh wait what type of bike is that."im a bike freak yes I am indeed
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. My job in Traffic Control gets me up at 4AM or worse, I might see my house by 6PM, and going on Stormcall for the recent Florida hurricane just left me wrecked for awhile. My current ride (a late 1970's or early 1980's Musashi Shabondama, purchased in Oahu by a serviceman and given away when he developed Neuropathy) has only needed fresh tires and a little oil, so a put a few miles on it every weekend and try not to think of all the designs in my head for awhile. BUT THEY ARE WAITING. If the Lord gives me time to finish that Bucket List of mine, I may yet see our Sun flare out as I tighten that last link...
