Daydreams on a Spring Scorcher

Return of the Scorcher would be the name that brought me together with my nemesis/progenitor.
Here is a daydream, a bike jam from Hampsterdam.

The Results...

We overhauled Mina's sweet Suteki mixti so you can see the almost done photos. She was tired of riding in such a prone riding position so we replaced her drop-bars with a taller Nitto Technomic stem to have her more comfortable. The catch to raising your handlebars in style is; if your steerer tube is not tall enough to accept enough of the stem, you are left with a minimum rise that may be a little high for some people. You can see Mina's handlebars are now at leasat 4 inches above her saddle. Fortunately this is just where she wanted them.

After admiring and photographing Mina's lovely ride, I washed my hands and removed my wedding ring in the middle of it and there was a little greasy heart left in the sink. I could feel the love from the ring pulsing like Frodo, but it made me have to give props to the talented jewler who made my wedding ring, and produces more hand-made fashions than I can even mention with my wife.Yesterday we had a tag-sale ALERT and ran out the door like Firemen for a local sidewalk rummage sale where a Boricua sold us a load of bikes that are for sale today in our showroom. Angel got the trike out with the quickness and we gobbled up these bikes for your enjoyment and benefit.
I am happy and feel like I am living the good life here today. We shall get the word out that we are here, but many thanks to you all for recommending us to your friends, neighbors and loved-ones. Victorcito has arrived and is repairing one of his hybrids for sale here.

The 3 Riders of the Apocalypse

We had three separate motorcyclists arrive coincidentally to one another last night. One of them had a sweet bike with a badly bashed in gas tank. It made us laugh to see that nice bike with a hideous bashed in gas tank.

Then we got another full overhaul going on here.




Hopefully the customers will appreciate how we completely strip down their bikes, fastidiously clean, inspect and polish all parts and precisely re-assemble and tune their rides. This lucky lady will be ready tonight for the weekend!

Tricycle Dreams

This is the pedi-truck cradling the mini flat-bed trike as it develops to a young work-horse for the shop. Angel meticulously removed the paint with the grinder and a hot new stripping disk that was clean and fast and precise. Notice the park stand bolted to the flatbed mothership. The mover-trike sat in El Barrio on Pleasant Ave. for the winter under a tarp. We were too crammed to fit her in the shop. It pained Angel that his first trike workhorse love was rusting away in the salty winter air. He braved the snow of January on the pedi-truck to resurrect the work-horse that got him where he is today atop New York's finest journeymen and craftsmen.


The red trike in the foreground came from our loving benefactor Steph at Red Hill Farm, a CSA in Aston PA, where it suffered weathering, but Sean from Recycle a bike, Times-up, our old bike shop, and A-Bicycle fame has brought it through here for us to rehabilitate and test. We believe in a strict testing regimen in order to assure the vehicle we repair is safe and sturdy.

Angel is developing an emergency bicycle transoprt bolt-on attatchment system to tow broken-down bicycles and even a rider back to the shop.

Like flowers after the winter, our business has blossomed over the last few sunny days. We have muchos jobs waiting but we are keeping up.
Hopefully we will be able to keep this up with our new resoursecful ideas. We seek to validate cycling as a legitimate form of transportation and elevate it past the internal combustion engine. Cycling is a healthy affordable way of getting around. This is a great alternative to the rising cost of public transportation combined saving on a gym membership.

Rain is growing flowers in the poopy lawn

We have been enjoying a momentum that has developed in the coelescence of the shop. We recently rebuilt the flatbed trike and put it to use carting some urethane, paints and solvents for the shop that a super was throwing out from one of these new condos going up in our neighborhood. Thanks to Jim's keen eye we have some more of the key ingredients needed to seal the dust into the exposed beams and joists of our ceiling.

Seen here is the greeting party on the right side of the basement great hall before we cleaned it out into the last 30 yard dumpster we filled. A typical scene to the old basement. Notice the mumified rat rounding out the ensamble.

That is like the neighborhood dogs who leave little nutrients for our lawn outside. The recent rains have cleansed some of the stench out of the air infront of our shop and delivered some nutrients to the grasses and flowers that happened upon our dirtbed of a sidewalk.

Thus the basement's filth has born some fruit. See the newest Kinfolk creation unfold below:

That is Maceo's whip that he rides for flash, this is another whip bearing the sample paint job that Kinfolk got back from painters:

Angel has been perfecting his trike and his trike is having a baby. Soon there will be Flat-bed trike and mini-flat-bed trike kicking around the shop. We had our first customer ask to rent the trike out for hauling some cement. We cannot wait to see the cement bags sitting on our freshly tuned suspension and drivetrain; rebuilt differential and all.

The Dogs are on Spring vacation with my mom. They went to the Adirondaks camping backpacking with her. Hope they are keeping her warm and safe.

By the way, we actually have a phone in the shop now. We had stashed away somewhere a cordless phone so I could blab away anywhere, but in the fog of war (we have been waging and winning a war on dust trash and debris) the phone vanished. So it was back to the basics with the classic old phones we salvaged from Cox Industries where we got our awesome Hallowell benches and rolling carts. PHONE # for LIT FUSE: (347) 442-1672

Thanks to all you who have been bearing with our construction and irregularities. Happy primavera!

The light at the end of the tunnel

Tunnel vision we have beamed into the peerless winter paying its dividends like drops from icecles on your cement digging slowly a pocks.

The maglite to the grill narrowly avoided perpetrates a scowl in my brim.

We are now like Marlon Brandos in Apocalypse Nows unique to our own flavors. The economy is stupid but we are prepared.

Reconstructed windows, full tiled bathroom, cleaned and pointed bricks and patched and sealed plywood floors. Bikes are starting to congregate in our first third. The fuse sparkles in the spring breeze. See the Kinfolk flagship visiting our port? Go to wegotways.com for details on your own Kinfolk or Vivelo NJS framesets.

Look Closely and you will see the impact that dogs have had on our society. We had a party to celebrate our opening and several die-hards came out from the West Village to see us along with our close friends and family. We look forward to seeing you at our nekst grand opening celebration. Japanther is playing so stay posted to our pres-releases here.

Look to brim and cosi to be in our next post.

race to the sun

We have several new additions to the formula. The signage is going up, the crapshack is becoming a brick shithouse, and the brick walls are coming together as a strong foundation for the building. We have some really fine Keirin bicycles coming from Japan. The Artisan behind the Vivelo name has agreed to produce his bikes for us under the name Kinfolk. For furthur details see wegotways.com.

The windows and a handicapped ramp are the last touches that we shall be doing while we are open for business. If anyone has a line on some Glaze to install windows, let us know.

We also have the flat-bed work-trike of the century here that we use to transport materials from the neighborhood suppliers. Photos soon. Bring us by your repairs now so we can get them ready for springtime.

D