Wired - Gravity Speed Bike

Well,

Caught off guard again by a cool write up from Wired.com

This time about the Gravity Speed bike....

Soooo Rad - Thanks Wired Crew!!

Heres the link to the article - Wired Magazine

Last time MLS was in Wired was the U-Lock tool last year

This was the U-lock post for Wired Magazine

Thanks to Kyle from Tracko for all the great pictures of the gravity bike and U-lock tool

Some quick updates on the progress of other projects - 

Matt started filming for the 120mph Track Race Bike and its looking SICK

Building weird Burningman projects, including stuff for myself because I was given a ticket!!!!

So look for an update tomorrow on what I am building.....

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

Gravity bike fork on the way

Well, I have had some of the most relaxing days I have had in a long while.

Kinda fun, peaceful and just a good time to catch up with the business side of MLS and all the fat stacks of cash that need to be counted.

Iphonin it up at the Actual Cafe in Oakland, super rad bicycle coffee shop

I think thats spelled correct?

Ok well I started hammering away again on the Gravity Speed bicycle's front end and machined up some Titanium parts last week. Check it out and see what you think?

The bars attach to the ring under the top triple tree. I think the chicks will dig it?

BINGO was his name O

Or something like that.....

Yesterday Sal ( the owner of Actual Caf'e ) appeared at my shop door with a bingo ball roller in hand....

 Note : If your from Oakland or the bay area you might have heard of Actual Cafe, its really cool and very bicycle related cafe, I mean you ride right inside of the cafe and hang your bike up next to a lady drinking coffee reading a book most of the time, its really a great place. Most of the time MLS concept projects can be seen hanging from the ceiling around the cafe, such as the gravity bike.

" We are pressed for time and the event is Thursday, do you think you can build something to rotate these bingo balls that is bicycle related? " Sal told me.

So tonight I figured I better just get it done. With the help of Matt Ducot ( the dude that does a lot of the movies on my blog ) and a few DAD's root beers we were able to hammer this bad boy out from design to finished in a total of 4 hours.

Not bad, for a Thursday night hammer secession or should we call it Friday morning... Thursday night build sounds more dramatic and badass.

Lets see how we did it.

If you read my blog you know I am a big Schwinn collector

So I pulled this one down which was on display, from the ceiling above my welding table

A good old 1960s Schwinn American 24" Boys

I had a plan...

Thats a kids 16" steel rim, tacked to the side of the ball hopper

Now the rear track stand was built and a custom piece to replace the rear freewheel on the bike with no teeth, the chain just slides where the freewheel should be. 

Matt thinking hes training while drinking

There is NO product placement in this photo.... Sponsors always welcomed !

How about a side profile, sorry I built faster then we could take photos.

There she is.... 

Ready for action at Actual Cafe's Non-Profit fund raising events

Matt wanted to show you how it works.

Sounds like an old tractor!

Want to know more about the event in Oakland at Actual Cafe.

Bike Bingo Event Info

Come out and support some good bicycle related causes!!!!

 See you there !

peace and quite for a bit....

The MLS Gravity ride on display at an event.

The light was perfect.... Shot on my iphone

Last night in the Werewolf den!

Well, I got a new pad located over in the big city of San Francisco !

So..............

Lets Party !!!!

1938 Schwinn New World out for a ride down the coast of San Francisco

back to the good old story of whats new in the shop..............

Its been busy building stuff for all kinds of projects and helping out around the area. Props goes to Jim C down in Santa Barbara (Recap of the film fest) for throwing a super rad bicycle film fest weekend for the first time in Santa Barbara. Everything went super smooth, the guys got the ducks in a row and the key to the city, Nice job Jim !

I started working on my Gravity Speed Bike fork, its kinda of a odd duck being a right sided aero fork, who knows yet ................ I put the Avid brake on the front of the fork as well so that I can make a neat little scoop to pull cool air to the caliper so it doesn't over heat, not that I will really use the brakes but why not.

 

Beside the forks, I started messing with the rear foot pegs. Because the bike doesn't pedal it really doesn't need a bottom brack but, when I was building the frame, I got so excited about it, I decided to put a bb on it just incase I ever wanted to make it a ridable bike. Here the info behind the cranks, don't be fooled, theres a bit of info about the layout.

because it doesn't have a chainring I decided to cut off the spider and make both crank arms look the same, by the way, I got these super nice cranks at the bicycle swap meet that Jim threw for the film fest last weekend. 20 buck !!

So by making some press fit stainless steel pieces that press in to where the pedal threads use to be I made it convert the right and left threads in to just normal 3/8-16 theads so I could bolt up some cool RSD motorcycle pegs on it. The neat part about making these little stainless steel inserts is that the crank arm side with the chainstay has the insert welded to the frame so that once you tighten the foot peg it locks the crank arm to the chainstay and creates a structural connection using the bottom bracket as the other connection point. Kinda a neat way to lock in the cranks arms as well so that on the left side the crank arm is just floating next to the wheel creating a very unattached look. well I am tired and I got a long day tomorrow of welding titanium rocket looking things for who know what and who so peace out.

Its super small behind the black peg but you can kinda see the little stainless bung that fixtures the crank arm to the frame.

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......

Milling a good time.....

I was making some parts a while back to try something new so maybe someone can take a spin off of this quick idea and make something cool with it.

The idea is to make a freewheel attach to a 6 bolt disc hub so you can run disc wheels and even if you want to get crazy mount a rotor between them and put the disc brake caliper on the right side of the bike for a super clean look.

I built it to mount to a lefty wheel but I decided to build the gravity bike without a drivetrain.

there it is kids

304 stainless of 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......

San Diego.... Party !!!!!!!

Well, looks like things are calming down after the custom bicycle show in San Diego. I would like to thank Brian Baylis for putting on another (  the third year ) kick ass show making me want to go back next year....

I keep under the radar most of the time and wander the shows without anyone knowing, so it was kinda weird having a booth and getting to meet everyone and see the response to my projects and my efforts. Thanks to everyone that stopped by the booth and let me know how much they enjoy the blog, only makes me want to post more stuff and build more rad stuff... ( like I tell everyone sorry I can't post everything here - only about 10% of the stuff I build gets posted due to security reason)

So here was the run down

We left ASAP to get there by Thursday morning and made it at 2pm due to having to stop by Cranky's bike shop and also Golden Saddle in LA to drop off racks and pick up my Penny Farthing.
As soon as I got everything locked in at the show, I made some rounds and started picking on Soulcraft's Sean, Stevil and Mo.  I was off to LA to party and for a business meeting with a big bicycle company.

Running on no sleep for days, I made it back to San Diego for a solid day of tradeshowing on Friday.

the penny, gravity bike, the beach cruzer and the guard dog Poe

on set up day which was already busy at the booth

Had lunch later in the day with writer Patrick from Red Kite Prayer and the crew, good times...

Friday night Jim decided to pass out at my booth

Ok, Peter at Cane Creek, I think that counts at a logo hit on my blog..... Pay up!

Saturday started strong with a race between Soulcraft and Monkey Likes Shiny

the Wizard Staff comp.

You might need to look at this blog for the results...

all hail the black market 

thanks to Kyle from Tracko for the photo at a highlight in the day

Saturday night was off the hook with the alway super rad party at velo cult bike shop

followed by Paul from Paul and I shutting down the bar. After splitting off from everyone and riding for a while I found myself here......

with a beach cruzer chained to my leg...... I guess when your drunk you go to the thing you love!

I think we need to look at all the +s here

1. I was eating donuts at 4 AM

2. I was eating hotdogs at 4 AM

3. I made Paul buy me drinks all night

4. I had a bike chained to my leg

5. I woke up later to find a bike still chained to my leg

6. I kinda made it to the show on time the next day

Sunday - well, I crashed the speed bike twice during photoshoots and my leg looks like well I am sure you get the idea. I am sure its only a matter of time before you see some high side crash photos of me.

Core77 Design Awards Entry

If your are in to really cool designs and always hunting for whats hot and wild in trends, then you have for sure come across
Core77 design website

They throw a contest for the hottest designs of 2011 and so I figured I would enter with the MLS Gravity Bike...

Who knows.... There is some really really cool stuff entered....

But why not try.... Not the cheapest contest to enter but the trophies are really cool, and who knows maybe I can get famous...

Kyle from Tracko testing 

If you ain't dragin knee, you ain't turning...

It turns like a 250cc GP bike that weighs 19 lb

double sketch....

Heres a link to their top picks from the site of whats hot for 2011...

Best of Core77 2011

Enjoy

JT

#1 and Proud

Today I got the news that my bike make it as #1 Bicycle of 2011 according to CycleExif as the most popular bike on their site.

Top Ten Bicycles of 2011

Super Proud - a great way to start off the new year !

Special thanks goes to Kyle of trackosaurusrex for taking some amazing photos and enjoying a day of ripping this thing down the hills in LA and not crashing it ( thats my job ).

Some extra photos Kyle took on his Flickr of the Gravity bike.

And a big thanks to the crew at CycleExif, Tracko, Prolly and everyone else for putting it all together over the last year and making it amazing !

Happy New Year to everyone and keep those hands building !

Nickel and diming....

This project has been nickeling and diming me for years on my time but now I figured I should just hammer down and build it because I have the tools to do it...

When I started this concept a few years ago with my brother, I knew I could finish it quickly and it would turn out like the Gravity bike and everyone would get stoked but the more I ran with the concept and split off with my brother the more I realized I was becoming a machinist for stuff but I was still missing the CNC part to really make my parts stand out...

I can machine anything by hand to a point but it often requires special attention on things like finish work because its not a perfect smooth finish but cnc offers you a showcase of the machining effort you have put in to it, its why people love aircraft parts and crazy cnc bicycle and motorcycle parts. Theres something about leaving the raw machine marks all over it and not polishing it to a glass like finish that sometime once anodized looks like plastic...

The more I left it sit on the frame table the more it would bug me looking at it but my customers come first and its not to say that I am short on work, what you see on my blog is about 20% of the projects I can show without getting sued or thrown in jail, so it took the back burner... maybe not even the back burner, maybe almost refrigerator with a cover over it...

The day came where after some sweet wheelin and dealin I scored the CNC Bridgeport Boss 10 and did the retro fit to a brand new drive and PLC ready to take on the most complex jobs, then came the teaming up with Autodesk's new company called HSMworks which links to Solidworks and Inventor for CAM ( see the old blog posts for more details) and with those 2 things the door finally opened on making crazy parts a reality... No paying for machining that I can't afford... I would do it myself and let it run all night on crazy parts.

   This is the project my brother and I came up with to build and I have been running with it since it was sketched... Lots still to come but day by day this thing is coming together....

                              

 

So come along with my machining adventure in the next weeks to see this beast come to life...

Machining aluminum softjaws to hold a expanding mandrel

plus it makes a perfect origin 0,0 right away after cutting 

I wouldn't call them softjaws really because it would still hurt if you got them thrown at you, but in the machining world anything made of Aluminum is called SOFT... ha, whatever....

These are the hub blanks Liem made on the Lathe using HSMworks Lathe Cam software

As you can see the one side of the hub was done but the other side needed to be hollowed out, plus I wanted disc rotor mounts and because the Haas Lathe we did the work on didn't have live tooling we were stuck doing it this way.

This is the expanding mandrel in my hand

 

Perfect fit ready for the hub.

Here we go... clearing it out with a pocketing cutting feature.

I didn't use a big end mill because I didn't want a lot of cutting pressure to cause it to possible spin or move on the mandrel...

Don't call me a pussy

 

switched over to a long 12mm ball end mill with relief to do this deep cut

Looks great but it was ringing like crazy so I put this wrist band I got from Autodesk University on it to reduce the chatter, perfect!

VIP status...

check that out!!!

With the mounts for the floating rotor!

On to the next parts

Dropouts on this bike are a wild one too, if you scroll up to the 3d model of the bike you will see the crazy machined dropouts so here we go... making chips.

 

cutting away..

I really like the look of ball endmilling the radius in to things and also the radius on these parts varies so theres no way I could use a normal tool

At the end I did a webbing and the part was held in by a few pieces and then I cut it out with a aviation shear... easy and fast and then I made another side in a mirrored image.

Thinking time... Sometimes its easier to draw and look at a part then using crazy modeling software.

I feel that a lot of newer engineers don't understand how important this is... you don't always need to sit and stare at the computer to make parts, go out in the shop and smell the oil.

Surplus Lockheed 6-4 Titanium

Blocks of it ready to become a king pin steering set up for the cable steering front end.

I really freestyled this part, I hope it works...

Roughing Titanium is a learning experience

If you don't machine it a lot it can be very costly if you mess up...

Called up Tom at Ox Tool to make sure I had everything right, hes rattled off the numbers on the phone by memory....

.375 depth of cut - 8 ipm at about 900 RPM with a .120 step over with a 4+ flute endmill 

He knew it... maybe he has done it before....

Side one getting some ball endmilling

and some clean up in the bearing pockets, you will see in the next weeks how this part works. 

it worked out pretty good, have to debur it and do some finish work on it but I think it will work to get the bike on the ground as a roller, just think this could have been some crazy part at Lockheed... but they were going to scrap it so I put some life back in it by making a mini F22 Raptor style steering link part... Kind of like Lockheed Skunkworks around here...

 

I got so excited about aerospace stuff I had to make a cart....

Built this beast in a few hours out of the junk laying in the off cut pile next to the saw

MLS Aerospace division just got a fresh new cart, off to powdercoating.