Short History
· Started working in bicycle retail shops at a young age in Fort Worth, Texas.[’83 to ’87]
· Worked for a few years at General Dynamics, while working part time in a bicycle pro shop.[’87 to ’89]
· Rode cross country in the summer of 1989, looking for a bicycle frame building shop to work for and ended up getting a job at Fat City Cycles in Somerville, Ma. [’89 to ’94]
· Helped start Independent Fabrication in Somerville, Ma.[’94 to ’02]
· Started ANT in an art studio while working my way out of IF. [’01 to ’02]
· Left IF and started ANT full time. [’03 to present]
Long History
I, like a lot of people, got into bicycles as a child. I started kind of late, but always wanted a bike. My dad got me a bike that was too big for me [bad idea, always buy a bike that fits] and that made it very difficult to learn how to ride especially when he was yelling at me. I taught myself how to ride on my best friend’s bike as he had a smaller bike [one that fit]. I worked my way up to my bigger bike and all was good. I was not a good jumper, but I could ride a wheelie a real long way. My first real interest in something special was this Columbia high rise that my neighbor had in her storage. It had these forks that had a triple crown and the fork blades were the handle bars too! She sold me the bike and I was hooked on having my own ride.
Around 1971/72 I saw this movie called “On Any Sunday”. This was a fun documentary about motorcycle racing and riding. I was impressed by the stars of documentary, “Steve McQueen”, “Malcolm Smith” and “Mert Lawwill”[who went on to be a mountain bike pioneer]. All of these men had a certain respectability about them and seemed to have fun at life, while being serious about their work. In the opening credits there was this bicycle race. The kids had converted ‘Hi-rise/stingray” bikes into “BMX” bikes with pie plates for number plates. After seeing that I converted my old bike to a BMX bike [there was a bike section in the grocery store that had some knobby tires, BMX handle bars and grenade looking grips!] and wanted to be a motorcycle racer [originally I wanted to be an Architect]. So it was really a love of motorcycles that got me into bicycles!
After that I was pretty much like other suburban kids in that I wanted motors and liked the smell of gasoline, but unlike my friends I began to memorize what exactly made a machine work and what the differences were. I rode bicycles to get around and pretended to be on a motorcycle. I was also like other kids in that I was in a young family and we had a real bad diet [hamburger helper, cool-aid etc…], watched too much TV and was pretty removed from reality.