In the store now

Keep your brewskis cold broskis!

a couple from the road....

complete with poser photographer phone app. special effects....

This place is incredible but man do I miss home.

Dance this mess around

When it comes to music Jason and I tend to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. The guy knows every single word to almost every single song on the radio. Where as I rarely listen to the radio. Long story short he tries to turn me onto some goofy gangster rap shit and I will try and get him to listen to some dumb band that put out one 7" 30 years ago. Right after I met Jason he mentioned how much he loved the B-52's and I was like "SO DO I!!!" Then we french kissed.

Try not to cry...

I know everyone that knows me thinks I am all about boner jokes and pretending that I am some tough guy. The truth is I am a softy. I think that's why Jason and I are such good pals. When we aren't guessing how big the kings of the chopper scenes wieners are we are spilling our guts about the stuff that really matters. We are alway on the verge of tears in his garage. Family is a big deal to both of us. This post is more personally pertaining to me but it all relates to how i think both of us feel about our dads.

Just over 3 years ago my pop had a severe stroke. I still remember the night I got the call. I just got back to my shop at 3:30 in the morning and I could barely keep my eyes open. My head hits the pillow and my phone just starts ringing. I pick it up and its my little sister crying telling me I need to head down to the hospital. He had emergency brain surgery that night. For the next few months he was in intensive care. He was in rough shape. He moved to and assisted living home when he was was finally stable enough. Constantly in and out of the hospital because of the negligent care he was being provided. My mom would spend every free moment with him. Wake up visit him, work and then back to hang out with him till he fell asleep. I know they always loved each other but until then I am not sure if I truly understood true love. You can see it in their eyes. My mom is a pretty strong and incredible lady. Now he is in a great facility. My mom bought a used handicap van and brings him home regularly to hang out there and he even gets to spend the night in his own bed sometimes.

Life is crazy. You never know what sort of curveball is going to be thrown at you. The first time I ever rode a motorcycle was up and down the street in front of my parents house on my dad's Hodaka Combat Wombat, that he had since before my folks got married. I have a lot of fond memories with my dad as from when i went with him in his truck to mow lawns for a few bucks on a saturday to when I was sixteen thinking i was a bad ass and i tried to fist fight him. He whooped my ass!!!

It's hard seeing someone you spent your whole childhood admiring being so defenseless and at the mercy of others. But I am glad he is still around and i got to spend the evening with him last night while my mom was out of town.

This photo was possibly taken the night i was conceived.

Took this of my dad last night after he had dinner.

Baby Pictures

Before Michael Schmidt. Before Born Free. Before the Panny Hamster. Jason was a model. I did a cover for Dice Magazine and they needed a shot for the inside bio. I knew it had to be sexy so I called Jay up and he went full bore! His wife took the photos holding the camera in one hand and their new born in the other. Sometimes I fear for Maggie's future...



I have at least 90 more photos from this afternoon.

Party Time!

I'm Nick. Jay reluctantly left me in charge of the blog while he is gone in England looking at rocks and eating haggis.



Fleetwood Mac is gay! Let's party!



Jay is bummed!

so...

I'm hopping on a plane heading straight to London in a couple hours.

Nicks gonna take over for a minute so expect to see alot of tongue in cheek and finger in butthole.

Bill Withers

Amen brotha

total commitment...

I've wanted to try and narrow a springer for a while now. Caleb over at Cro Customs has done a few recently and kinda inspired me to just pull the trigger and do it already. Looks like its gonna be a lot of work just to get a half inch out of each side.

-TONIGHT-

You know how we do...

laugh..

1:30 am...

clocks ticking....

gnar...

I just turned 31 last month and have been skating for almost 2/3 of that time. About 11 years ago I dusted my knee pretty bad frontside flipping some stairs, banana splits - my leg went one way and the rest of me went the other... Most of my friends rode bmx so I decided to build a bike to cruise around on with them and to help work on my knee. After a while the casual pedaling turned into something more and once I felt comfortable and started skating again I realized I couldn't shake the bike thing. It actually made skating more fun because I started looking at things a little differently than I had been before.

Now, the only problem with bmx is that when you fall...you fall hard. When you bail on a skate you can usually kick or throw your board away from you, not the case with bmx. You either get tangled up in it or if you throw it away it will usually bounce right back at your face. Some of the worst slams I've ever taken have been on a bike which eventually led me to slow down because it was affecting my ability to skate as much as I wanted to.

Although skateboarding was and still is number one, bmx will always hold a close second...you guys are gnarly.

genius..

This is how it should be...fun.
Thats what this is all really about, right?

Max
Michael
Davey

thanks boys.

the panny hamster

At the Van Creeps show a while ago.

Chopper Dave photo.

poor man's hub...

If you've ever cracked open a star hub, I'm sure you'd agree that theres alot going on inside. So when I decided to hack these up, I also thought about changing out the center section too and simplifying the design of it. No more loose bearings, misplaced seals or shims. Instead, now it just uses modern day sealed bearings that you can get anywhere for $12 and a crush sleeve in between like you'd use on any spool hub...and you can still cover up the bearing ends on both sides with a stock star cover so nobody will ever know.

Thanks to my pal Kenny over at Zodiac for finishing up the the machine work after my lathe gave up on me half way through.

broken fins...

waste of precious time.

Pickles...

This is Craig aka: Leland Pickles...one of my best friends.

We started hanging out in high school. He was a bmx kid, I was a skater, he drove a bitchin 57 Chevy to school, I had nothing...it just made sense. He grew up in a hot rod family and knows something about everything on wheels. From German luxury cars to 100 year old tractors he just knows how things work, definitely the brains in the group.

Machinist by trade, lazy-ass by nature he always needs a little "prompting" to work on his own stuff, basically you gotta hold him at gunpoint. So in the middle of my chaos yesterday I made him some bars real quick for his Shovel, nothing groundbreaking but a little improvement over the old ones I'd say.

almost made it....

Rode up to the Born Free party at Garage Company yesterday. If you've never been there, don't go...Yoshi's collection is a mind blower and will most likely make you want to kill yourself. Cool people, cool bikes and free food; what more could you ask for.

and now the good stuff...

The ride up was a breeze, the freeway was flowing and only one person tried to run me over. The ride home on the other hand, a little different story. The bike started making a slight knocking sound a few miles from home and I could feel air puffing on the side of my left leg...stoked. I was too close to give up so I just muscled it home but the knocking and tinking got a little gnar so I ended up shutting down and walking it the last block.

The verdict -
broken motor mount
blown head gasket
stripped head bolt

oh yes...

I'm pretty confident in my unicorn collection and also convinced that Mr. T is the end all to everything but you got me second guessing myself with this magical piece, well played.

Max...get yer dancing shoes on, I'll be coming up soon.




Thanks for the photo, Michael.