Kish Fabrication

Last winter when our good pal Tim Kerr was visiting and painting a kooky NAHBS bike for us, we refused to drive him to the airport until he drew something we could turn a buck on. This, the latest shameless exploitation of the humble mason jar, is the result of said duress:

We have them in the store, in short and long sleeve versions, both printed on Anvil Organic 100% cotton T’s. The ink is grey, the shirts are black, and the coolness coefficient is off the chart (technically it’s .998, just barely on the chart, but still pretty cool).

That’s it for now, more non-textile news next week. Happy Memorial Day USA-ers!

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Can you believe over a month has gone by since my last exciting update? Mm hmm. I feel the same way.

Moving on, so much has happened! First off, big thanks to our latest corporate sponsor:

Your generous support will really help during our heavy summer event season.

Speaking of being drunk at work, what kind of world do we live in where a fella buys himself a cool new CD…

unwraps it, opens it up, and THIS happens?!

Is this someone’s last-day-‘F you’ move, or a sign of the coming apocalypse, or ??? I’m not even kidding. That actually happened.

Anyway. Here’s Mike G’s steel bike, headed to Florida…

Another surprise, it took almost TWO YEARS of living in North Carolina before someone asked for a Tarheel-inspired Carolina blue paint job:

This one’s going to Siler City’s favorite son, Other Mike.

Godspeed, Mike and Other Mike. See you at the Air Supply tribute band concert on the open road…

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Hoo boy. What a conundrum. Not much in the mood to work, really rather be having a beer, but it’s only noon…

PROBLEM SOLVED

Photo shoot at Hillsborough’s fantastic beer-pushers Mystery Brewing!

This is Rod C.’s new ride, you’ll be seeing it on either side of the Blue Ridge Parkway this summer as he drags tourists through some awesome trips with Black Bear Adventures, a most excellent touring outfit.

The bar here is made from an old loom, from back in the day when this building was a textile mill. By the way, if you want to sound smart while you’re toodling around the Piedmont of North Carolina, every time you see an old brick building say “see that? that’s the old textile mill” You will be right 100% of the time.

Anyway, after we put the bike ON the bar, we got kicked out for ‘overt partying’ and moved to the parking lot, which is a fine place to take pictures too.

It probably comes as no surprise, but these photos were not done with my crappy phone or crappy picture taking abilities, but are courtesy once again of Stephen Garrett . Way to perform under pressure*, Stephen!

*while drunk

Also many many thanks to the good sports at Mystery for tolerating us, and not running me over with the forklift.

More photos are at our Flickr page, check em out now!!

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Eeyaaaarghh! Enough already, Mother Nature (if that is even your real name). I get it. Climate change, earth in upheaval, etc. This wussified ex-Californian is ready for SOME GODDAMN SPRING ALREADY. Being as this is ostensibly a bike blog, I should say I feel this way because ‘I want to ride my biiiiike!’, but if we’re being honest, really I want to sit on the porch and drink beer without a fluffy jacket and hat on. Maybe not pants either, but first things first.

So what’s doin’ around you ask? Hmm. Well, the usual, really, bike stuff mostly.

This week we sent out a couple steel frames (I think these things might catch on!) for fancy paint jobs, this one for NC ex-pat John M.:

It even has the jumbo-riffic PF30 bottom bracket for added vertical compliance and lateral stiffness*!

*not true

There’s also the usual rust-proof grey bikes comin’ down the line, here’s one for local professional drifter and damn good cook Rod C.:

And another one that’s nearly identical, but has these things in the tubes so the bike will break down to a pocket-sized 10x8x8 inch box, so you can legally carry it on an airplane*:

*another bald faced lie

In music news (branchin’ out!), our good friend Tim Kerr‘s monstrously influential band, the Big Boys, have had their awesome Where’s My Towel/Industry Standard (from 1981, holy crap I’m old) record reissued on Light in the Attic. So, if you played your original to death, go ahead and relive your skate-rockin’ youth, it’s as awesome as you remember.

If you’re wondering what the connection is, Tim’s the guy who painted our eyebrow-raising frame from this year’s NAHBS:

Look how happy he is, it came out great!

Tim also did a swell new T shirt design for us, they’ll be here in a couple weeks.

Last, we will have a new batch of mason jar/ti cage combos next week. Most are spoken for, but there are a few extras. If you want one let me know soon.

Back to work!!

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We have a new ‘titanium color’ theme garment line to compliment our ‘dirt and coal color’ line, check it out!

Our beloved Great North State T shirt

with the oddly-popular small mason jar graphic on the back:

These go quite fetchingly with our previously-mentioned, but camera-shy grey jerseys:

Dust off your credit card, and head over here and go nuts: KISH MEGAMART

Not that these accidents waiting to happen are going to be a permanent part of the store, but Jon Suzuki was kind enough to send us a way better photo of our mason jar/ti cage combo, thanks Jon!

More of these will be available soon. I’ll keep y’all in the loop.

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Well that’s another NAHBS in the can! Thanks to everyone who flew in, and all the local Denver marijuana enthusiasts who welcomed us into their musty-smelling wool and fleece-wrapped arms. I didn’t get around much, so I can’t tell you too much about what was there outside out 10’x10′ residence. I found a titanium bicycle bell built by our bud Ron Andrews, and a nifty ‘shabby chic’ style Sputnik Tool t shirt, so I figured I ought to quit while I was ahead.

By now you may have seen one of the 8 billion photos of our etched mason jars, and their accompanying titanium cages that are currently clogging the tubes of the internet. (Note to bike blog people, we also make titanium bicycle frames, they were attached to those jar cages).

Anyway, I should first point out that the cages only exist to display our very cool etched logo mason jars. If you were to put one on your bike, and ride it, THAT WOULD BE A TERRIBLE IDEA. WHAT IF IT BREAKS, AND YOU FALL ON THE GLASS? EVEN WORSE, WHAT IF IT SLASHES YOUR $100 TIRE? Now that we all understand these aren’t made for use other than sitting on your shelf, occupying the space where you put your favorite totem, we will have a few more for sale soon. They’ll be $50, including an etched jar, plus $5 shipping in the US.

If you want to get in on the second floor (you missed the ground floor, sorry), send an email and we’ll put you on the list for one.

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Thrills indeed!

We’ll have a few surprises at the North American Handmade Bike Show, but here’s two bikes we’re bringing for y’all to twirl your mustaches to. The show is February 22-24, in Denver, CO (the mile high city! *wink*).

First one is a dandy 650B with nice understated silver parts, which means it will probably just fade into the woodwork at NAHBS. But if you’re reading this, you probably already know we’re a little more into ‘substance’ than ‘style’, much like how my wardrobe choices make me look more like ‘a pile of dead leaves’ than ‘a dapper gent’, but the bike still looks a hell of a lot better.

The other is a pretty amazing SL cyclocross frame with a matching stem and fork. Fancy etching and painting courtesy of Spectrum Powder Works. Oh, and it’ll bust apart into 2 pieces so you can circumvent the airlines’ punitive fees and pretend that you’re just checking a box full of taxidermied squirrels through. Full disclosure: I can’t afford a bike like this, I’m just imagining how one might go about lying to a TSA agent.

There are more pictures at our Flickr page.

You may have noticed that the background of these pictures in different from perennial favorites ‘Kish woodpile’ and ‘quick! the forest behind the shop before it starts raining!’ I have to thank the very helpful and kind folks at the Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw, NC for letting us use their awesome facility, the ballroom is the former dye room of a textile mill on the Haw River. Go to their site and read about it–it freakin’ rules.

Also, the photos’ quality level may have bumped up a bit (in the way that the sun is a bigger cloud of gas than a dog fart). This is due to my extremely good fortune to have Stephen Garrett behind the camera for this shoot. Big thanks to Stephen, too.

As for the rest of you, be sure to visit our booth at NAHBS (#1113) in between visits to Denver’s many weed dispensaries! We’re looking forward to it!

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I know that actual information posted here often gets buried in sarcasm, obscure references, cough-syrup-induced hallucinations, too many hyphens, etc. But apparently the point of the last post was COMPLETELY lost. What I was trying to say is that we are limiting our ‘output’ to 50 ‘units’ this year, and won’t be taking on any off-the-wall projects. This is an effort to keep lead times short, allow more time for other on-the-wall projects, and keep everyone happy and healthy. I thought it was relatively clear.

Then I got THIS in the mail:

The REAL mail, by the way. Not the electronic kind you can just press a button and it goes away. Nope, this is in my life now. And will probably be framed soon.

Here’s a thing, though! We have new global warming-friendly jerseys in the store, they’re a coool grey version of our standard Castelli jerseys, so they won’t do that thing that the black ones do where they give you heat stroke if it’s over 70 degrees outside. You can buy one (or more!) here.

Like the other jerseys, the size is more of a Biggest Loser style emotional beat down than an actual representation of how big the garment is. So, consider ordering one size up, unless you are familiar with the Castelli ‘club cut’ jersey.

Last thing for now, Cycles D’oro of Greensboro, NC has asked me to give a talk about how I achieved the world’s highest score in Galaga something bike related for their monthly hoodang on Monday, March 4. The time and place have yet to be revealed to me, but rest assured I shall let you know in a later, potentially even more exciting post!

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Well I’m pretty disappointed that I spent all my money preparing for this apocalypse that never happened (was it cliff-jumping Mayan zombies? I never was clear on that).

I just now peeked out from my underground bunker to see if my herb garden survived (these $30 MREs really could use a Guy Fieri-style kick-up, flavor-wise) and everything looks exactly the same as when I went down here on the evening of 12/20!? Except of course my car, lawnmower, frisbee disc launcher and obscene lawn toad collection are gone. And a family of drifters is living in what’s left of my house (yes, even drifters have families). I took a quick photo, they have completely destroyed the place, take a look:

So, I guess I need to regroup and figure out what’s next for Kish Fabrication in this year of twenty-ought-thirteen-oh.

I had a lot of time to think about our next move down there in the bunker, and now that it appears I can cross ‘fight Mayans’ off my list, I can refocus on the business at hand. Bike building, and related things that might bring in a few bucks to help me rebuild my shattered empire.

Not a whole lot will change, it’s all been working out pretty swell, and I want to again thank all of you who spent money with us in 2012 (sorry I blew it all on 3 tons of oats), and those who helped spread the word about our bikes. I think we’ll stick to building bikes again this year, our 21st, as near as I can figure. Yep, just raced right past the 20th anniversary, and landed squarely on the old-enough-to-drink-versary.

Reflecting on this auspicious anniversary, I took a sober (!) look at the state of Kish Fab. I realized that we’re in the enviable position of having a little too much frame building work, some of this a result of my inability to say ‘no’ to semi-goofy undertakings.

Looking back on the bigger time-sinks of the past several years, most of them have been projects where a little voice in my head said ‘this sounds like a terrible idea, why mess up such a wonderfully simple machine as a bicycle?’ (Then another voice in my head said ‘yeah, but don’t you want a fifth Jet Ski?’)

I decided to listen to that voice (the boring first one), and concentrate on what we do best: building pretty normal bikes, and a reasonably modest number of them.

We’ve been able to keep lead times short, but sometimes at the expense of long hours, and also at the expense of other interesting projects I DO want to do. So this year, lets reel it in and try 50 bikes, and regroup next year at this time and see how it goes. My apologies in advance if your freak-bike doesn’t make the cut, or you’re late to the party. Ok? Go 2013!

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(all sold, thanks)

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