1938 Schwinn New World

Some times when I look around my shop I see things I love but I feel like if I had to move I would rather not have to move all kinds of unnecessary stuff and sometimes its good to keep the stuff moving thru your shop and the money flowing for the next project.

This time I decided to part with my loved 1938 Schwinn New World... This beast started its life in the West Side of Chicago made in the hand built side of Schwinn where the Paramounts and Superiors were brazed.

Then it was sold to someone in San Francisco in the late 1930s, it spent most of its life in the bay until it somehow ended up back in the midwest in Madison,Wisconsin for most of the 1980s, until I bought it back out to the bay in 2010 back to where it started its riding life . Now its on to its new life back in the Midwest in Nebraska and the story goes on.

Hope he enjoys it.... I know his back won't with those bars I made for it.... But that stand he might be stoked on... 1930s style MLS repair stand ....

Holy $#!+ where have I been.....

July at MLS is always a mad month for many reasons and so this is my complete July post in a nut shell...

1.Interbike is coming up
2. New product releases for 2012 for various companies
3. Prototype medical stuff
4. Bike Expo in San Francisco is coming up
5. Doing a Kickstarter.com grant for the 120 mph Speed bicycle project for filming
6. Working with 2 electric motorcycle companies
7. Designing home decor and gardening products for a few new companies
8. Working with a green company that produces generators that run 100% off of wood chip and biomass
9. Doing R&D machines for Clorox and its brands
10. Making various research projects for donut making
11. Still making more designs for the video game console project
12. Threw MLS prom at the machine shop
13. Getting ready for an art show coming up in a week, here in Oakland.
14. Also pulled a high speed chase with the cops for fun.... first time I have gotten caught.... sucks..... $$$$ :(
15. Working in LA and helping my brother on the turbocharged Honda race concept project
16. Its summer and you know how it goes... This is my first full Oakland summer and its been amazing with all the stuff to do and people to meet. It reminds me of back in Minneapolis with September weather, but all year round.
17. Almost forgot - Had personal lunch with famous designer Pierre Terblanche who designed all the Ducati motorcycles for the last like 15+ years, kinda stoked me out to say the least.

so where do I even start....

How about the fun stuff.... wait its all fun.....

This blurry pictures seems to stoke me out so much - its my summer and its been a blur of good times.
Matt leading the cruz on his custom Traffic cross bike to the hidden lake in the Oakland hills. Swimming at midnight is EPIC after a long ride!!

The new MLS Laboratory Home decor line will be coming out soon...
Made from recycled Lab materials and goodies these should stoke out your mom and have her asking for more. I bend them up on the big 90 ton press shown in the MLS video and the flowers are not included.

This is Jay (Chemical Engineer/designer/good looking smart girl) and myself hanging out after our meeting at All Power Labs in Berkeley. This company designs, builds and test a system called Gasifiers, which in a nut shell - take wood chips, chars them, extracts the gases from the charring process then uses that to run a natural gas engine. Running completely 100% on wood chips - sooooo cool to see it all happen.

This is one of the prototype systems that gets tested around the clock with various different things, if you ask them what they have run in the machine other then wood chips, this list will go for days, they have even run cigs for a full tobacco running gas engine you could drive a car with. That is Abrim the Fabricator/Shipping bitch standing in the blue hat.

I spend about 60+ hours a week working in my shop and other shops, but every once and a while I just have to shut it down and relax. we made a Santa Cruz run to swim in the river with the friends, Mr. Poe the dog is always down to relax it seems....?

Don't feed me coffee at 10 PM or else you will have a set of bars to ride down the street to the local bar for last call.

For real don't do it, now the 1938 Schwinn New World is a racing machine in under an hour.

PROM  at Monkey Likes Shiny -  "a moment in time" theme prom

The idea was to dress as a couple in a matching period correct clothing, we went as Steampunk....

My lovely dates for the night - Louise Chen and Mr. Poe

I fired up the sheet metal press and made her a fan out of aluminum using a clear plastic protractor in the middle so she could measure the degrees.

The punch was so spiked it almost evaporated.... need I say more

Thats Matt up front dancing to Kenneth's hit single " Girl check your signal" 

We had a list of celebs show up which stoked me out, also a live performance from  Kenneth Ronquillo and with over 70+ couples attending, the MLS headquarters was hopping with fun. When no one wanted to leave because of all the fun, I decided to take things in to my own hands by doing a 4th gear burnout and donuts on the dance floor with my dirt bike, in my own place destroying the hardwood floors and smoking the place out ( please don't tell the landlords) 

This is the Show coming up in Oakland if your in the area 

Also I have asked Mike Cleaver of Cleaver Bikes to join me in displaying some oddness brewed in Oakland.

To finish up this post I think the electric motorcycle will do the trick.

Jeff Sand of Sand Studios contacted me about doing some odd fab work on his top secret project.

The idea was to build a concept 100% electric motorcycle that looks good and rides even better.

Using his odd  1 to 1 scaled blue prints and no numbers given ( all by eye ) I some how made the bash guard out of 1/8 thick aluminum all cold worked on the big press and all my sheet metal tools. With little to no time left before the date to unveil I put the last minute polish on the bash guard ( its the aluminum part around the orange battery box, it protect the batteries from stuff hitting the frame, batteries or underside of the bike) I receive an email from him asking for more things to be made. This use to be my life doing this last minute BS when I was fabricating on air for Discovery Channel shows and also when I was working for Roland Sands Design, so to say the least I don't really even get upset or frustrated like most people do when this stuff comes in hours before the big event. 

The email said " hey make this stand for the bike and make it pretty" 

BAM!!!

done, the only problem is now my track bike only has one grip because I put the other one on the handle for the stand as you can see in the lower left of the picture. 

The photos is in Derek's shop in San Francisco which is sooooo sick, its called Moss Machine and they build some neat stuff there, even parts for the cable cars in San Francisco.

This photos is like taken an hour before we were to show the bike to a fully packed press release.

The BRD Redshift Electric Motorcycle with my bash guard left in the raw aluminum

It got painted black for press release. 

If you want to read more about it here is some info from the press release

 MX action  or  for some cool photos from the night( pictures )

Thanks everyone - This July has been fun !!!!!

Saturday ...................

I did most of the welding on my dads frame today and took a break mid-day to relax and take out the 1938 Schwinn 6 day race bike down the harbor coast. I love riding that bike and nothing makes it better then 75 deg sunny and a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge!

the white Schwinn Madison & the 1938 Schwinn New World Track

I love the front end on this machine - all 1940s style with Wald bars

This beast was all hand fillet brazed with chromoly tube - not bad for 1938

I also started working on the downhill gravity speed bike. I was doing a group ride in San Fran last week and out on the route they have a section that is over 3 miles of downhill cornering and fresh tar road. It is SOOOOO cool to coast the whole way for miles, the goal of the group ride is to see who can coast the farthest at the end of the 3 miles. I did it on my 1938 Schwinn and I was almost at the point of breaking the coaster brake wheel because its so long and with the sharp corners you need to brake at some points.

the right side with the rear end

with Paul from Atomics 12 dollar banana seat

the left side without the rear end

its about the size of a bmx bike with 26 inch Crossmax Lefty wheels

I also kinda threw together the 1984 Schwinn Madison track bike ( rental bike at the Velo track in LA from the 1980s), this was a trade up from Jim C of Cranky's bike for making the new helmet racks. And since Jim has 2 more rental Madisons and I know Jeff from Bike Jerks has one, we should have a race of the rental Madisons. I have wanted a Madison for a while, because I am a Schwinn dude and this was one of the last hand welded Non-Paramounts to roll out of the Chicago Plant in the 1980s and they only made a bunch of them for a short few years.

good old Chicago......

Dream Bicycle

Well I got it - one of my dream bicycles. I really didn't expect the bike,all the info and contacts to fall in my lap like it did the other day.

Here I am with my Perma Grin :)

very rare - 1939 fillet brazed Schwinn NEW WORLD track frame

This rare bike was welded by the same crew that did the Paramounts at Arnold Schwinn's Chicago factory. The factory on Chicago's Westside had a small section attached to it called " The Handbuilt Shop" this is the home of the Paramount and New World frames and forks. The bike only was built for 2 years and not many were made. This is a very special frame due to the dropouts and a few other features. The New World was a easier frame to build and cheaper then the Paramount because it was not a lugged frame and at the time there was still no efficient way to carve lugs on a production scale. There is a possibility that the frame was welded by the great Oscar Wastyn in the hand built shop.

Basically - I love this frame