April was a busy month...

The San Diego Custom Bike Show (April 9-11th) was a great experince for me. I meet a lot of great people and learned a lot. The builders there were very nice and welcoming - they were happy to talk shop and shared some methodology with me. I was sharing a booth with Pierre Chastain of Blaze Bicycles. Our booth was between Mark Nobilette of Nobilette Cycles and Dave and Victoria Hill of Victoria Cycles, and I spent a lot of time talking shop with Pierre, Mark, Dave, and Victoria. I also learned loads from actually attending the show from a builders perspective. Not only what I need to have to display as far as stands and signs and props - but also as far a how little is being done by most builders to engage customers. Sure most builders put up signs and show some bikes and try to engage people that walk by the booth. However - very little is being done to tell the custom frame builder story - and I feel that for some of the people that attend that would be a valuable story. In the future, I hope to try to figure out a better way to tell that story... at a bike show....

I left the show full of ideas and ready to try some new things and ready revisit some things.

We bought a house and moved in April. That distraction along with contracting work really put a hold on all projects in the shop.

We are just about all moved in.... the next big step will be to get the 2 car garage set up to be home for the Muse Cycles workshop. The project list includes: some framing, drywall repair, painting, lighting, electrical improvements, floor rehabilitation, peg board, shelves and the like. I can't wait to getting back to building some frames. I have some 29er wheels ready for the next project... I may need to build up some racks for these first two builds... our new home is very close to shopping and the farmer market - so it would be good to have racks / baskets on these bikes..

As promised here are some pictures. I am still hoping to take better pictures of bikes... perhaps I'll run across someone that is interested in trading a frame for assistance with photos and maybe even website design.....