My history with bicycles...

Okay this is Naron's Build Blog, and normally this blog is going to be reserved for updates on what I'm doing in the workshop, and what projects I'm working on. I'll try to update it fairly often, but I'm not making any promises. For this first one, since it's about bikes, I've decided to furnish a little history about myself and my relationship with the the Bike.

I've been involved with bicycles and bike repair since 1992, when I 

started working for a company in Maryland called the Bikemobile. The bike shop was a warehouse, and used two converted delivery vans to go to people's houses. 

I got into a vehicle accident in a company truck (not a shop van) on my first day of work.

So, I spent all my time in the warehouse support facility, mostly doing bike assembly

The very first thing I learned about modern bicycles was how to properly assemble and tune brand new and slightly used ones in a shop environment.

Eventually, though, a guy gets Bored with a job that cannot ever offer any advancement. (The insurance company decreed that I never get behind the wheel of a company vehicle again). 

One day I found a cycling industry magazine in the office, and read an article about bike messengers. The very next day I called around downtown to every messenger company in the phone book.

I had by this time had the boss essentially push a bicycle on me to eliminate my excuse for lateness, the bus. I rode the 2 or so miles to work and back every day, and felt myself becoming visibly stronger and faster over the months I did it. I'd been taking detours and long ways just for the feeling of it for a while. I was ready.

About a month later I got a call and within a week quit my job.

became a bike messenger.

That took up the next six or so years of my life, working for various companies in Baltimore and DC.

I started doing my own repairs and mechanical work to save money, and deal with the constant theft of my bicycles, and quickly began building my own bikes out of whatever cheap parts I could find.

I used to cruise the alleys of the City in my spare time and drag home old discarded bikes and parts.

After about 1995, everywhere I lived ended up having a pile of bikes and parts somewhere, which would eventually grow to take over whatever space it was confined in.

This is how most volunteer bike shops start in the first place, I was that close to starting one myself, but had never seen one and hadn't gotten the idea.

I was also working alone, and basically just trying to maintain my own mobility. 

In '97 I started getting involved with activism and travelling. I did a lot of long distance touring carrying fairly heavy Weight, and, when I was in town, operating as a volunteer courier, and resource gatherer for an organization called the Environmental Crisis Center, in Baltimore City.

They fed and advocated for the city's homeless on a shoestring budget. and I handled much of their pickup and delivery on a mountain bike outfitted to carry weight.

In 2002 I came to Missoula and met Bob Giordano and Free Cycles Missoula.

As I became more involved there, I encountered the vehicle that inspired me to build this cargo bicycle:

I built this in about 2005, and it's been in use since then. 

It's served me well, and lasted a long time under rough conditions without ever failing catastrophically.

 It's undergone a recent overhaul, too:

It's still in the process. There's more I want to do with this design so it'll appear here a Lot.

I taught myself how to weld on this project, but have since gone to school for it and learned far more about the process. For the past three years I was in Wilmington, Delaware helping Family, and while I was there i attended a 630- hour structural welding course offered by the State of Delaware at the Delaware Skills Center. I was trained and certified and Found a Job, all for absolutely Free.

While I was there I also volunteered at the local community bike shop, the Urban Bike Project. I worked to set a a bike stripping production system of the sort necessary to do projects like the cargo bike, but space constraints came to bear again, and I was forced to abandon the project at that time.

So, I've returned to Missoula, reconnected with Free Cycles, and resumed the work Here, where it Began.

I'd eventually like to form a nonprofit organization of my own, for the purpose of teaching people the skills I learned for free myself, in the area of welding and metalworking,

but for now I have a Residency Position in the Pedal technology Warehouse here at Free Cycles Missoula,  Until the end of september.

That's pretty much where I am right now.