My MASI road machine.I have been riding bikes my whole life in one form or another. Whether it was the standard BMX bike as a kid. I had a Huffy Sigma, then a Haro. Man, I remember that Huffy SO WELL. I used to ride it everywhere. Anyhow, the Haro was a little more serious. Then my dad bought me my first mountain bike. It was a weird soft-tail beater thing that he got probably at a garage sale or something. I remember being really mad and ungrateful because it wasn't what I wanted. But it grew on me and I had that bike for years.
Pretty sure I had some crappy road bikes after that, but I mostly was skateboarding at this time and moved away from bikes. I actually got pretty fucking good at skating, which I will save for another time. I got back in to bikes about 12 years ago when I ended up in FL and didn't have a car for about 7 years. The skate scene where I lived SUCKED, so I bought a used Panasonic road bike with an old Campy group on it. It was lavender and beautiful. That fucking bike got stolen ON MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY. I replaced it with another used road bike that was not nearly as nice. Which then also got stolen. So a month or so later I got my first NICE road bike. A Cannondale CAAD 6 with full dura-ace group. I got really in to riding on that thing. I was putting in about 100 miles on that thing per week. When I moved briefly to NYC I got my first fixed gear. A guy I worked with was the messenger for the company, and gave me his old Surly. What can I say, I was hooked. I rode that thing all over the island of Manhattan. I even used to strap a crashpad on my back and ride to Central park to go bouldering after work. (MESSAGE TO NYC FIXIE PEOPLE: You think you're badass? Try riding down 5th avenue in 5 O'clock traffic with a crashpad strapped on your back.)
Mmmmm.....SRAM FORCE.When I moved to Boston I left my 40 lb. cruiser/grocery getter behind and brought only my Cannondale. I didn't have a clue where to ride, and nobody to ride with, so the poor thing sat a lot. I ended up selling it and then getting a Specialized Langster. Not a terrible bike. I upgraded components and gave it a custom paint job. Up next was my Bridgestone, which was a labor of love. My friend Adam taught me how to build wheels, and I really put a lot of time and money in to this bike. That bike still makes me smile, and I have been on many many adventures with it. But I was beginning to feel the itch of the long open road again. I needed a geared bike. I missed my Cannondale. So I got a Masi 3vc Team Edition. Which then hung on my wall as just a frame/fork for almost a year until I finally had the money to build it up.
That's some hipster bullshit right there.Enter close friend, gentleman, and avocado hater: Marty Walsh of GEEKHOUSE bikes. I will make this already long-winded story a little shorter by just saying that I am really pumped to be able to create a bike that is exactly what I want. From geometry to color, to style, to fit. It's a pretty amazing process. Marty is really down for whatever. Which is cool. He isn't too snobby about what you want. And what I want is a tad bit unorthodox. But I figured....fuck it, if I'm getting a CUSTOM bike, I'm gonna get a CUSTOM bike.
My Geekhouse frame all tacked up and hanging on the wall at the shop.Integrated seat post, custom one-piece bar/stem, braze-on polished Geekhouse logos, and custom powder coated rims. Those are just some of the features. I am very psyched for this thing to be done. It's mostly finished....mostly. The polishing of the braze-on logos will take hours.
The mock-up of the bike. Color is way off. As you can see from the image on the right, I am going for ZERO toe overlap.
Great story! Your blog is really fun to read :)
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