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......