The payment - A race to a race

Over the last months, MLS has become so busy doing all kinds of crazy projects for the Government DARPA stuff, U of Minnesota and other big companies, I haven't even got a second to stop and enjoy why I truly do this stuff.

I get in these work trances that make me forget sometimes, I love every second of doing metal crafting but its crazy when I get the opportunity to take a step back in the past and show someone what I have learned over the years. 

18 year old Gabe is my new helper/ apprentice around the shop, he gets to do all the fun jobs like making sure the shop is getting ready for the TV show pilot and all the layout is kept clean. All his hard work can't just go unnoticed so every once in a while its good to have some fun building a fun project. 

The project we decided to tackel in days notice of the Maker Fair event was a concept we had created after some spinning around in a parking lot....

We found one of those Green Machines and decided to have some fun that day.....

After looking at the MLS 36x29er shop runner.....

We decided it needed to be a Green Machine on steroids using the 36" Coker front wheel.....

Luckily we found this blueprint on the internet with all the main details to build this thing.

So I did a concept sketch with Gabe and made him set it all up and dial in a building area. 

Using a classic real Ames chair and the 36 front, Gabe started figuring out the points and measurements

The basic layout with the 20mm MTB 26" inch wheels on the rear

Gabe is still working on his Tig skills 

you learn by mistakes and lots of burned holes......

We decided to go classic hotrod style with a square frame 

We wanted to add some style so we put a 1 inch tube slip fit into the 1.25 tube

Check it.... Style....

Those Stronghand clamps and magnets work so well for this stuff to get it mocked up

We quick slid this in to the work load,

a custom wet work station for Performance Machine Research and Development

Being my apprentice means you have to travel and hammer out the jobs with me.

I had to go to LA for a day and weld Harley swingarms

Lucky I get to use that BuildPro welding table, makes life easy for fixturing so I can get done quick.

Gabe can't hang after a 36 hour work day including the 6 hour drive to LA.

Next stop for the weekend was Exile cycles to finish hammering out some welding

on some projects going out. 

We bent up some tubing for the rear end of the race machine

Back at MLS World HQ

I did a sketch on the welding table for young Gabe so he knew what we needed to build

With the rear end in hand, notching is made easy on the 1940s K&T horz. mill and some Starrett holesaws.

Part of building at MLS is knowing and getting to run all the machines

Gabe bending up the brackets for the shocks on the rear. 

A day before the event ....

World Champ Mountain biker Greg Minnaar decided he needed to lend a hand before jetting out to the world cup races that next day so we put him to work.....

I don't want to add any more details about his measuring and the metric conversion and the errors that happened that night due to my American tape measures......

He got us all fired up and brought the energy to the last day that it was lacking, so it was well worth it. 

Gabe got to give some pointers to Greg about welding

Really cool time seeing everyone having a good time.

We had a roller by about 4 AM

All smiles from Gabe....

I had to check his work......

My new Pepples Donut sponsor will love that logo hit.....

You can also see the Rock Shox sid shocks on the rear of the cart. 

Well that stance is on point....

We ended up not getting the steering linkage done for the race....

But the machine did go to the race and even if it didn't race it was kinda a wake up call to eveyone there.... that they should be ready for when this thing hits the figure 8 track. 

Trust me...

This bad boy will get done with a great green paint job and you will see some videos coming.

Enjoy...

New kid on the Block.......

The last months at MLS have been off the hook nuts..... Sorry, I haven't been hiding, I have been living it large between getting flown around the USA to weld and working on some new crazy concept projects for a big airplane company, the new Gillette razor commercials, and those other kids down the street called Clorox who always have fun robotics to build...

With being so busy comes the problem of filling orders for things that MLS normally produces for various companies, the level of expectations the customers expects only leaves me the choice of hiring someone to help out that is experienced and as excited about building stuff as I am, which is hard to find....

I heard of a kid Mike Cleaver having fun building stuff in Oakland out of a Steam Engine restorer's machine shop, so I invited him to a bicycle art show I threw a few months back at the Actual Cafe and I was surprised to see his level of creativity and building odd stuff. He builds a lot of weird stuff that is quick to catch your eye and he has a good sense of style and flow to his machines.

I knew he would work great helping out around the shop so I put him to work building stuff and welding. I think he has a good out look on having fun and doing it for the love of building, learning as he goes along.

We had a booth at PedalFest in Oakland

Hard at work 

Thanks Izi for the Polaroid Photos

This was a quick build Mike did years back 

He builds a lot of normal track racing, touring and road bikes as well

I made a visit to the Steam workshop and seen this thing up on the rack

I pointed it out and he shook his head, why?

" A bike to haul a Pony Keg, I started building it years ago for a micro brewer to deliver and never got paid so I threw it up on the rack and never finished it "

I said " I need it, trade me for tools " so we traded for tools, everyone wins !

Check out Mike's Flickr for all kinds of cool photos of builds

Cleaver bikes Flickr 

Pedalfest Jack London- Oakland, CA

This show put on by a bunch of avid riders from Oakland and it was so much fun, I some how slipped it in to my craziness of work and thanks to Sean from Soulcraft bicycles for throwing me down a booth next to Mark from Paragon machine works. I think the whole day the most enjoyment was seeing Mark's two young kids push each other around on the Gravity Speed bike in the trade show hall. Those kids put on a few miles pushing each other around laughing. It was so cool to have a free show in an very bicycle driven community, it made it possible for new groups of people to experience all the handbuilt and vintage bicycle world without paying for admission and scaring them off.

There was sooooo many kids wanting to talk at my booth about welding and building stuff, so rad!!! 

Good work to crew for putting it on it made my day and my week!!

Izi shot this fun video of the 36er cruzin the WiskeyDrome

This was the test run by Slow Larry,  the faster run didn't get filmed and got really dangerous!!!

Later in the night a bunch of builders all met up for dinner and they for some reason kind of invited me, mostly because I pulled up while they were standing waiting for a table and did a huge brake stand burnout in my truck,smoking out the street block, then I parked and joined them to their embarrassment.

 It was rad, I got to hear all the great stories from the master story teller and master frame builder himself Bruce Gordon about the Slug Queen of Eugene,OR ( you might want to search that up if you don't know about it ). 

Bruce Gordon, Sean and a bunch of us out for dinner in Oakland

Well, I will be all over the place like normal but I got a big fun project coming up 

I will let you in on the secret - MLS Espresso machine 

Just wait......

A night on the town..... Oakland style .....

Well, tonight is the Bicycle Art Show at Actual Cafe in Oakland,CA.

I stayed up all night working on everything and I am tired....


Come out if your in the area, its going to be a good time - look for the dude in the one piece 1970s tux, thats me!!!

This 36-29er Coker machine is going to be sooooooooo much fun !!!!! I took the solar panel off for the photos, the rack is only tacked ( i still need to do a lot of tweeking on it to get it looking right ) and i need to make the stand for parking it which will also be the fork brace when your riding.

A new twist on flatbedding !!!

Try something kinda new but dont go far from the path just incase............

So the other day I was messing around with some sheet metal trying to think of something new for my rack on my cargo bike with the 36 inch rear and 29er front.

My first thoughts are " DON'T make it look like an electric bike, hide the battery and don't let anyone know they are there ( unless they read my blog ). " I started building a lithium-ion battery pack that was 36 volt to match up with the rear drive hub but making it not too crazy large and heavy, the goal being an assist bike and not a full e-bike sized battery.

The next thought was to create a way to charge the system on the go without the charger, it doesn't need to be a full charge, just a helper is fine.

Coming from a strong background in renewable energy products and concept RE projects over the years, I remembered a very key solar panel that helped the US military. The company Uni-Solar has developed so many crazy products but one of the main products, being these crazy flexible solar panels that the US military could use on the battle grounds. With blocking diodes on each cell, a bullet can go thru the panel and only loose a section of cells as compaired with other companies that would result in the loss of the complete panel. The other neat thing is the panel is flexible and has a clear plastic covering, this also was a great design, to allow the ground soldier to be able to fold or roll up the panel to transport it. I decided to use this panel because of the no glass system and because it was could be modified very easy.

So this is the battery tray, the front part will be used as a glove box for paper work

It will have a door on the front

Here you can see the battery layout

The charger controller is in the middle of the pack

and the motor controller is on the left, plus the storage in front.

Here is the Uni-Solar panel just on top so you can get the idea

The final rack will have a 1/4 inch thick piece of lexan squeezing the panel down

This panel is a 11 watt panel at 12 volts, so it will be about 3.5 watts at 36 volts

Here is the mock up of the cargo bike waiting for the classic leif fork, the rack and bars to be finished, its an odd machine to say the lease. It won't look much off this photo when finished so the real question is.... Does it look electric?

New Canon Camera !!!

  Ok, check it kids -
 I got a sick new Canon
so here it goes on the wild streets of Berkeley,CA                                  




                                                        Gravity Speed downhill bike

Monkey Likes Shiny Gravity Speed bike
Mavic Lefty wheels and no drivetrain - pure coasting

close up of the non-frame side

Floating locked crank arm that now acts as a rear foot peg support
note the insert in the crank for the footpegs

front view of the mock up bars
the tow quick release, headlight and Iphone holder are next so stay tuned

Don't ask me why it won't rotate?
Cut down the Cane Creek headset as much as possible, they will be pumped that it has no logos!

Turn your head to the right!
Careful for your neck doesn't get sore!

                                   Cargo Bike -  Coker 36 inch Prototype design

Matt Ducot helping lace up the ELECTRIC Monster !!

Started making the rack!

Those are the sides you are looking at

They have 3 stop points

-  Flat narrow - like you see it, about 15 inches wide

Box with sides - Flip those up 90 deg vertical and they become sides

Super wide Flat - Flip those babies out flat and now it a wopping 24+ inches wide !

German - Just like me

Got boxes of them to build weird stuff with.

So cool and so fast

I drilled this one from a 36 hole to a 48 as you can see by the missing holes

maybe 29 x 36 inch

made a quick mock up fork with some boxxer triples and Jim C's stolden 29er coaster rear wheel

I kinda like the look but it cuts in to the rack a lot with the big 29er wheel as compaired to the 26

Coker Big One Cargo bike project

Well, a while back COKER cycles sent me a wheel to build something with to get people pumped about the 36. I toyed around with a few designs and just was having a hard time making something that struck me as a good fit for the monster wheel.

 I decided to try the 36 inch wheel with an electric hub that was sent to me for the rear of the cargo bike I am building. It will have a 26 mtb front wheel with a giant flat bed rack over the front wheel and the rear will have the 36 inch wheel with giant aluminum pannier bags to cover the largeness of the wheel.

It should look like if a Schwinn Cycletruck met a old tired Touring bike in a dirty alley, this is what the child may look like.

This will be, I hope at the handbuilt show in Feb. all done up with hot paint and fancy parts.

+

=

it might look something like this

big monster Coker Big one 36 inch wheel

Guess you will just have to wait and see what happens

COKER unicycle CONCEPT project Day 1

Here we go kids

I had to take this picture just to show everyone how big a real 36 inch wheel is compaired to a 26 inch mountain bike wheel. Keep following !!!