On a balmy summer evening last year, my friend and crack-shot designer/engineer-at-large Aaron Panone and I were working through our second or third Perfect Manhattans at the Indo and bullshitting about bike tool design. I recall (somewhat indistinctly) a “Aha!” moment occurring. The next morning, we dug a few crumpled kitchen checks covered with scribbled drawings out of our pockets and got to work. Three prototypes, thousands of dollars, and a year later, we’re very pleased to release the T0001 “Rotafixer” tool under the Union Foundry label.
Confused as to what this thing does? Stebs at Paper Fortress shot a very cool how-to video:
The result of passion-driven collaborative design and production, the T0001 was engineered, tested, machined and finished entirely in the Boston area. Exclusively for sale through OPEN, online and in the shop. Details here.
I apparently was a bit ambitious about blog frequency in my last post, and there’s good reason. Solid spring weather has found us happy and healthy here in Union Square, Somerville, with plenty of projects, plans, and moves to accommodate. A few things of note:
We’ve been running all over the Northeast arranging the final touches for the new shop. Our socially-conscious design vision (and our long-since-over-budget build-out allowance) compel us to recycle and reuse as much as possible in our transformation a 40-year old barbershop to a clean and functional shop. We found dozens of recycled steel shelves (from a now-defunct RAD Fabrications) up in New Hampshire to organize our stockroom and make room for all the new product coming. A blisteringly fast shot down to south Connecticut scored us a few made-in-NYC vintage oak library ladders for our roomy upstairs (cool story on the Putnam Ladder Company last year in the NY Times) and a rush hour crawl back.
We dropped by Sean Milnes’ lovely house in New Haven to relax a bit and pick-up Sean’s wheels for repair. Turns out doing this:
Sean’s off on a East Coast trip with Shop Cultur on what may be one of the first FGFS “pro” tours this June, and we spoke a bit about what the scene is shaping up to be. Manufacturers are making new product to meet the evolving demands of riders like Sean and enterprises like Shop Cultur signal the rise of FGFS in the ‘burbs and smaller cities that don’t have shops like OPEN to cater to their needs. Inevitable schlocky bandwagoning aside, it’s a win for everybody when a small group of committed pioneers create something that gains mass appeal and support, and we at OPEN are constantly looking in to new product, events, and education to encourage this growth. Sean is a genuine, kind, and focused person and is exactly the kind of individual who personifies our philosophies and attitude. We’re super happy to have him as part of the family. Be sure to check him out on the tour (details TBD) and at the BFF 2010 in NYC this year (OPEN will be there for the films, races, comps, and street party, as well).
Last note / shameless plug:
Chorus Gallery, formerly adjacent to the old OPEN shop, is getting ready to occupy new (and larger) space down the street and is holding a pop-up gallery and live-painting fundraiser at Trina’s Starlight Lounge, May 12th, 2010. Drink specials, good art, and fine people will be in abundance. Come out and support Chorus Collective as we move towards reopening in Union Square.
All that being said, keep an eye peeled on this site / RSS / word on the street as we rapidly approach our re-opening. The shop is looking good, the weather is getting consistently clement, and we’re becoming terribly excited.
Walking toward the shop from our ritualistic AM stop at Sherman Cafe with coffees in hand and laughing in the late morning light, we spotted a distinguished-looking gentleman wheeling what was obviously a classy track bike down the train bridge. Waving the fellow down, we were introduced to Tim Dixon, bike-lover, furniture-builder, and Imron-sprayer extraordinaire. Hailing from California and the heyday of West Coast craft builders, Tim was dropping in to show us this extremely elegant Sam Cotten track bike and chat a bit about his new wet-paint operation in Boston.
Sam Cotten, he explained, was a friend of his who had a part time framebuilding operation in Hollywood, as well as being an actor and amateur philosopher. Tim cut some Cinelli lugs into delicate shapes and had Sam build him this frame, which Tim then painted. The result, with the perfectly-matched C-Record kit and Cinelli bar/stem combo, is about as classy as they come. Yes, that is an extremely rare semi-sloping Cinelli track fork crown. Yes, those are Record Crono tubular rims. No, we’re sorry, but you can’t ride it.
Tim is starting up his spray operation again here on the East Coast, and we’ll be offering his services through the shop. Please do drop in to gawk at his ‘90 Cotten and start dreaming up your new paint scheme.
So we’ve been working round the clock to get this build out complete and it’s so close we can taste it… or maybe that is the taste of sawdust and paint fumes lingering in the air and making us a bit light headed. As we put the final touches on the space and begin to see our vision gain more clarity with each new day we are hopped up on anticipation (and paint fumes).
Here are a few hints as to what you will find very soon when we “OPEN” to the world!
My first taste of these came when Ian handed me two pieces of mitered steel and said the words “aero” and “bars,” which got me insanely excited. Finally, last night, I held the finished prototypes and my love affair became a little more serious. Ian jumped through hoops jigging these bars, hand-bent the drops and finished it off with a polished stainless Icarus feather. As each project starts and finishes, I become more and more impressed with Ian’s attention to detail, creativity, impeccable execution and passion for doing things the way they should be done. You should all ride an Icarus, just ask me how. (Yes, that is a hint)
…but by the time Zack & I left the shop, our favorite grocery purveyor was closed. All we had was an empty parking lot, the monotone glow of the sodium lamps, and fresh snow on the ground.
Nothing to do but enjoy the last of this long winter:
The last of the meting piles of exhaust stained snow will be gone soon, to be replaced by semi-warm evenings, spring BBQs, and hopeful-if-still-unseasonable shorts-wearing. See you all out riding!
