I decided to write more about my decision/journey to make bikes than anyone would probably give a shit to read about. Mostly because I can and if it's not interesting to read I'm good with no one reading it. Here's an idea, click here for a synopsis of my frame building credentials.

 

I started riding my bike like many kids did, pedaling at a piece of plywood propped up on a brick on a bike borrowed from a friend in the neighborhood. I was 13 and eventually I was able to get enough money together, between chores and holidays, to purchase my own bike. We went to the local bike shop and I picked up an orange Dyno Zone. Eventually my wheel started shifting so I went out to my dads barn and asked him to show me how to use his stick welder so I could make a couple chain tensioners. After learning that I asked my dad if we could build a frame in which I was informed that a stick welder is not going to work. When the end of 10th grade rolled around I decided that next year I was going to go to a vocational school for welding and fabrication. My first welding job was welding massive dampers working with fluxcore. 

 

I grow up a 10 minute drive from the original Chenga World Skatepark, where I met Joe Prisel during my senior year of high school. He got me hooked up with a job at HMF performance exhaust who was also welding frames for his company called Capricorn Bikes. That is where I made my first handful of frames. Capricorn then turned into FKR, we had an ad in an old BMX Plus. In 2004 friend and FBM sales rep Kerry Sayre called me for a job in New York working at FBM under the tutelage of David Harrison, who's now doing Pedal Driven Cycles. I started out getting the tubes fit for Dave and Ken Musgrave. After while I started welding in bridges and doing a couple of frames for friends while I was learning Daves frame welding process. Once my brother Mike and Dylan Cole took over the fitting I became a full time welder.

 

As soon as I making frames I've been searching for my geometry and experimenting with different geometry trying to find what best suited me. Around 7 years after I had started making frames I had more a than a thousand production frames built and a bunch of customs I decided to move to Oceanside California with my brother. During my walk about there I started longing for frame building and got ahold of Aaron Huff at Solid Bikes looking for some work. I would commute to Sacramento for a few weeks, sleep on the floor of the shop with a piece of cardboard for a pad and a box of wine as a blanket and work 12-16 hr shifts, ride the great parks there then return home. I did that every month or so for a little over a year. After returning to the east side of the country to be nearer my family I decided to move back and weld for my friends at FBM again.

 

Since being back in New York I married a most wonderful woman had an amazing daughter with another about to be here. With FBM closing the doors to the shop I decided I still want to make bikes for all of you so I've been building up my own shop at my house and very excited to share my ideas and frames with you.