January BoTM 2012 - Vote NOW!!

[sinnerman]

THX guys
And yes I am still kickin barely.

Very nice bikes and thanks for sharing too.., always nice to hear a little more.

With still having the shop, have you considered building again??? do you miss it at all..?

after looking at your link, gotta say this paint is my personal favorite from those you have displayed.

would love to hear more about the Y-File too.

 

[GeckoCycles]

That Spooky is bad ass.
Not what I was trying to achieve but bass ass none the less.

The Slicktrock Jr. was a kids first bike for those who never rode before. I got 20" Diamonbacks for my two boys and I'm not sure I could of ridden them if it was my first bike. High BB, long cranks and weighed a ton.
After building this Jason rode on his first try. Victor was another story which is the bike pictured. He has failure issues and wouldn't even get on it till he was too big for it. He sure liked to wheel it beside him, show it off and all the attention he got.
I worked with Rock Shock development when they were in town trying to design a fork for a 25-30lb kid. Came to the conclusion that there isn't enough weight on the front end for a fork to work until they hit a curb or something big. Just not worth the added weight for what you got. Kids when learning to ride have no clue on how to absorb bumps and were getting thrown off the bike on every one of them. With the sweet spot design the kids were able to sit on the saddle and peddle through just about anything learning to ride. This enabled training to happen in the dirt where falling off wasn't so bad.
This was a 10" alloy wheel bike. Those hoops couldn't be bought back then individually. I took the front hoop off my Bob trailer and the rear came off a a KoolStop baby jogger. Chris King custom made a narrow flange 20 hole front hub but he wouldn't make me a coaster brake rear. LOL
I shortened a set of BMX cranks to 100mm and used McMahon ty bb spindle with 30mm press in snap ring style bearings. Ala Mantis and Ritchey in the early years. I used that same BB on my off dirt bikes. CK headset of course. Is there any other one?
This was a very light bike and the kids had no trouble handling it. I later desided that it would be better to have heavy wheels to help keep it upright when it got rolling. Just didn't do it for heavy bolt lased steel wheels just have no COOL factor. LOL

I did consider building a cheap made in USA bike with production techniques but I got no MTBR interest as it would still be pretty expensive compared to China bikes. It would of been a Y-File-It but not built with my one joint at a time process which built very little stress into the frame. I just can't compete with China so I gave up trying to get a shop rate here in the US. Full custom market is too hard to justify here with all the small garage shops doing them. I need to bring home some coin and not just pay the bills it generated. It was a great hobby for a single guy living in the shop. Then I got married and all that changed. Karen didn't like me just answering the phone all day and building in the wee hours till I dropped!
I miss the bike industry and building like you can't imagine. Now I am divorced and living in a RV parked at my shop but China.....well you get it. I can't make a rear end for what I can buy a complete bike for in a shop.
The Y-Bike frame, fork and BB sold for $515 wholesale back then. The Genesis went for $900. I think I was getting $140 for the stem painted to match. All were custom airbrushed to the customers liking and most customers liked the smoke paint and lots wanted splatter too.
I did some really cool paint jobs back int he day and painted more bikes than I built on a regular basis. One had newspaper cartoon strips under the clear, another had barf cleared into it. Yuck. LOL I did family crests airbrushed and custom camos of every kind you can imagine. Some painted at the customers favorite spot and used it as a back drop. Filled in the missing parts that the bike blocked.

Anyway it was nice chatting but I have to go get ready to do some damn Drywall finishing.

 

[GeckoCycles]

BP.
I just noticed that you had a Specialized saddle. The Y-Bikes in the last few years came with the Turbo saddle.
I was buying complete Haro Extreme's and taking the parts off and selling off what I didn't use. They were large frames that didn't sell so I got them by the container for a unreal price.
Not to say the original customer didn't change parts at time of purchase.

 

[slimjoe]

gecko

So many nice bikes but i love the GECKO soo much

 

[sinnerman]

Thank you for sharing that info and giving us a little more insight into the world of Gecko cycles.

Best wishes for the future, and big respect.

 

[FMJ]

That Spooky is bad ass.
Not what I was trying to achieve but bass ass none the less..

I get that. The URT you did for your boy is amazing, in a subdued way. The Spooky is a different animal. A totally OTT, full on mini DH rig. I remember seeing the Genesis in MBA BITD. As a machinist/fabricator/wannabe painter I admired your skills. As an ex MXer, I wanted to ride the stuff Rob and Brent were building, though.

 

[john]

Official Result for the BoTM Jan 2012

1st. Bushpig's Gecko Y-File
2nd. theredchili's 1991 Monster Fat
3rd. videojetman's Pace RC100

Congrats to all. Cool to see the builder of the winning entry posting on the thread!

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Congrats to all. Cool to see the builder of the winning entry posting on the thread!

Most definitely!

Thank you for sharing that info and giving us a little more insight into the world of Gecko cycles.

Best wishes for the future, and big respect.

x2

 

[rumpfy]

Who voted for Chute55uk's Trek 6000? Chute, if you voted for your own bike...thats weak sauce!


1st and 2nd both damn clean bikes.

 

[bushpig]

I voted for the 6000.