Ep. 31 Austin Russell of Russell Makes

On this week's episode of the Shut Up and Build Bikes podcast, I share my interview with Austin Russell of Russell Makes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Each week on the Shut Up and Build Bikes podcast, I get on the phone for about an hour and I talk to somebody in the bicycle frame building world. And usually that is actually a frame builder, but not always. And this week, my guest Austin Russell is not exactly a frame builder, so I'll explain that. But usually we talk about our guest's story and try and tell that story. And we talk about technique and maybe philosophical perspective about the way that we go about this work. And so my friend Austin, good friend of mine, he took the same frame building class that I took with Doug Fattick. He took it back in 2011. I took it in 2010 and I've known him most of the time since then. I didn't know him when he took the class, but since then we've kept in touch. So, you know, he's been into bicycles for a long time and he's been into fabrication. He's done a lot of different projects. He never built another bike after the class, but he did make the first one. And he's worked at Velocity USA, the bicycle wheel and rim manufacturer. And so he worked there for like five years as a wheel builder and he just built thousands of wheel sets, lacing them up, intensioning and truing them. He's done that just to death. And then he also, more recently, the last about, you know, three, five years, something like that. He's run the actual manufacturing of the facility, which is pretty cool. You know, for a younger person, you know, he's my age for someone like us to be working somewhere and to have sort of an opportunity to move into a more interesting and challenging position like that. I think not everybody gets that, but he's done that and he's done a really good job of it too. So, you know, when they wanted to bring the manufacturing of the rims from Florida to Michigan, he was given the opportunity to sort of take that on. He rolls all of the rims and he has his hands on most of the, you know, the anodizing line and the machining and the whole drilling for the spokes and all these different things. And so we talk about that and we talk about, you know, bike frame building and some different projects that he's had over the years. I think he's a really talented and interesting person. And he's creative too, like with his, his home fabrication shop over the years, he's made a lot of clever and creative things. One of the things we talk about in this episode in this interview is his skim bike, which is just a ton of fun. But basically it's just a bicycle that also has skis on it so that you can ride it off of a boat launch into the water. It's totally a goofy competition that Austin and some of his friends are daring enough to actually do. So that was a really fun part of the interview. But anyhow, also a couple months ago when I upgraded my CNC milling machine, he was the person who bought my older one, which is still incredibly capable. And so he hadn't really done CNC machining and now he has this very capable machine. And I'm excited to see what he is doing with it. And I imagine he will continue to do really exciting and interesting things. And so because he's sort of in the world of, you know, the bike world and sort of in the frame building world. And because I think he's just really talented and interesting guy, I wanted to get him on the show. So where we cut into the interview here, I had asked him about the frame building class that he took in 2011. And I think I asked him, you know, like was the first bike that you built a Fixie and he's kind of telling us about that. Yep. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's what's popular at the time. So I wanted a Fixie. Here's a cool, there's a super fun bike. Yeah, and you still have that? Yeah, I still have it. Yeah, I got Rob some parts off as well. It's not rideable right now, but yeah, I still have it. That's a cool bike. And so that was you built a frame and a fork and it was lugged and then you also did, did you guys do painting in that class? Yeah. Yeah. I did the whole, did you do the whole three week class? I did the whole like three week class where you got to paint and everything at the end. Yeah, mine was just two weeks. It was. And by the time the course was over, the bike wasn't totally finished like it was, they had to do a little bit of the rear end work for you with construction. And then there was a fair amount of finish work that was left to like I didn't have time to to remand face and chase all the different, you know, mounting interfaces for seat posts and had to and stuff. Yeah. And then it wasn't painted either, because yeah, it was just two weeks. Yeah. So you did that class. You were certainly interested in bikes and frame building and stuff, but you maybe didn't have any specific plans for what you were going to do with that information. Right. Was that going into it? Did you have like any interest or desire in like doing it a whole bunch more? Or did you see the class as like a fun experience in and of itself? Well, I did want to build frames. I thought, you know, I was really into BMX at the time. And I was like, and that's like the from this perspective, it's like the worst thing to be into because I was like, man, I want to learn how to, how to build a bike frames and, you know, I buy BMX. I'm going to start building BMX frames. Well, you can buy an American made really well made BMX frame for like like $350 or $400. So yeah, to think about like just starting out learning how to build frames, man, I'm going to just jump straight into the BMX market with obviously, you know, not actually going to happen. And I never really bought all the, you know, frame building specific tools or anything. I always kind of wanted to do it, but I still haven't built another frame. I did get into wheel building and, you know, at the bike shop, nobody there really knew how to build wheels. I mean, they did, but I kind of learned from the mechanic that was before me. And he didn't even work there anymore. It's just like whenever he came in, I would like to ask him questions. And he was pretty much just like, well, you know, just looking to build wheel and cap yet. And so that's like all I knew about wheel building. And, you know, I built probably, I don't know, less than 10 wheels, but enough to kind of know what was going on, I guess. That's when I started looking around for another job in the bike industry. And I wanted to work, you know, and I didn't want to work in the retail side anymore. So I guess I was moving toward manufacturing. And so that's when I got my job at velocity. So I started there as a wheel builder. That's kind of how I got my foot in the door. And on the side, I kind of also did other product photography and I did a bunch of like videos for a while. We were putting out videos for like a couple of years. And I was doing all those sharp, yeah, those are really sharp too. You guys had, I know you said the one that you did where you showed how to like install the tubeless tire was actually weirdly popular. Yeah. Was that a Vimeo channel or a YouTube channel or both? It's on both. We kind of heard it out on Vimeo. And that was my decision. I just kind of liked Vimeo more, but as the years went on, it became, I don't know, Vimeo is cool, but I mean, YouTube just doesn't have the traffic. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of a whole point when you're making product video stuff. Yeah. And then you did, I remember one of the videos you guys did was like, you're, you're at the truing stand and you start plucking the spokes and it's like a holiday time video. There's like Carol of the Bells or something that is on the spokes. Yeah. And that, did you actually, that's like the most popular video we ever did. But you're, I know that you did actually play it. Well, yeah, I mean, like you could tune the spokes or you could sample spokes and then you could, you know, have like a MIDI sequencer that you actually were able to play it on there. I wasn't actually able to play it. Actually, the, the, what I did do, we have a load cell at velocity that we can, that's made to hold a spoke. So what it is, you basically, you can put, it's connected to your digital, you know, read out scale and you can put however much attention on it. And then you can test your ten-seometer on it. You can see like one, one, the spoke is at 120 KGF exactly. What does my ten-seometer read? And so it's a really nice way to calibrate your ten-seometer in-house. Wow. Anyways, that's what we used it for. But what I used it for was to, I used a guitar tuner and I put a spoke in it. And I would, I would pluck the spoke until I hit a note that I needed and I would record that plot. And then I used, I did that for every note that I needed and I used each clocking sound and I actually just laid them out manually in like a video editing software. So it took a while, but that's how I did it. That's the secret. Wow. Yeah, I didn't know which way you had done it. I've seen that video a handful of times and I used to do more audio and music projects on the computer. And so I was aware that you could do it in a number of different ways, but yeah, that's pretty cool. I am not going to give you a hard time for not actually playing. Well, you know, the spoke tension range that you would need, that wheel wouldn't have been anywhere near straight. And I don't know that you could actually build a wheel that would actually play like that, but maybe, maybe, you know, for like a really simple song or something. - Yeah, that was really cool. So you get this job at Velocity. You're kind of itching for a different taste of the bike world and you're working there and you're building wheels and you built a lot of wheels. - Yeah, I mean, I built wheels there pretty much. I mean, I built wheels there a full time, except for the way I was working on a photo project or whatever, I was building wheels and I did that for almost five years. - That's crazy. - I forget, I had a count because every time we build a wheel, we sign off on it. - I have a wheel set that you built for me and there was like an initial that you put on the sticker with your pen and you're saying, yeah. - Yeah, so we had to do that for the wheel we built. So that was like an easy way to keep track of how many you built. And I built, I think, I forget. If there's either over 4,000 or over 6,000, it's somewhere in that range anyways. Call it 5,000 wheels is roughly, that's a lot. - Yeah, did you ever get like carpal tunnel wrist pain that sort of thing from like using your hands so much? - Yeah, a little bit towards the end especially and that's, you know, kind of one of the things that Jordan made start looking for new opportunities whether it was within Flossy or not. And the opportunity to kind of head up the factory came at perfect timing for me anyway. - So for folks who don't know as well, in velocity USA situated in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in years past the rim production was done in Australia and it was done in Florida for a short period of time. But now the wheel building and the rim manufacturing are all done in the same building, Grand Rapids, Michigan. And so while you were building wheels in the same facility, there was the rim production going on. - Right, exactly. - And like you say, that was going on in Florida. And then circumstances, you know, in the company whatever they wanted to, they wanted to move the factory up to Michigan so that everything would be in the same building. And at the same time, the guy who started the company in Australia, like I don't know, 33 years ago or something like that, you know. He's been doing it a long time and he doesn't want to do it for the rest of his life. So he was looking for somebody to basically take over his job of running the factory and making sure, you know, the factory keeps running. Everything that's entailed to that. And so I was there and ready to take on that position. So I accepted that offer and that's what I've been doing ever since at Velocity. - Yeah, that's, it's really cool. For folks who haven't seen, there's a YouTube video I did a little over a year ago. I was in Michigan and you gave us a tour for 20 minutes or something, you know, we went around and you showed all the different parts of the process, the the anodizing line, the rim rolling, the machine sidewall machine for if you use rim brakes, you know, if you're still living in the 1980s or whatever. And the spoke drilling machine is really cool and the stacks of rims from floor to like seven feet tall or whatever, it's just, it's a really interesting facility to see, so it's cool to get, for anyone who hasn't seen that, I would recommend watching that video on my YouTube channel. You can just search, you know, velocity factory tour, but yep. So anyway, so you get this opportunity to start working there and you do, what was that learning curve like? I mean, now you're very familiar with the ins and outs of the automated anodizing line and rim rolling, you said you've rolled just about every rim or. - Every, yeah, everyone that has come out of a Grand Rapids facility have rolled. - Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, so like you guys work with an aluminum extruder out of Arizona or something and they provide you the lengths of extrusion that have the profile of the rim, but it's a straight section and you guys have to roll it with a rim roller. Yeah, so that rolling process is something that you have done for every rim, that's crazy. - Yeah, can't take a vacation like that. - Yeah, it's tough. You know, every time I take a vacation, I have to, you know, roll a bunch of rims beforehand so that they have work to do while I'm gone. And then when I come back, usually they're like, you know, finishing up the last five rims that I rolled or whatever and thought, but like immediately jump back on the roll and roll as many rims as I possibly can for a few days. So that's a little tough when vacation comes, but the reason, I mean, it's not a great reason to have only one person that can run a certain machine, but that machine in particular, you can make a ton of scrap on that machine and not even know if you're not really paying attention. And so it's hard to teach that and you're talking about the learning curve. I mean, you know, I kind of learned that on my own. I mean, the boss is there who had run all that machinery for as long as it's been around. He taught me how to use it and he gave me a pretty good head start as far as, you know, things that, things that you need to know for adjustments and maintenance and all that. He did that for me throughout the whole factory. But, you know, I'm a pretty detail oriented person. So I feel like there's a lot of details left out, but that's the kind of thing that you can't really teach. You know, I absorbed everything that I could from him and he just, you know, he taught me everything he could and the rest I kind of had to learn hard way. And it's been, it's kind of steep learning curve, but yeah, I just finally kind of feel like that in control of most of it. And I don't even want to say that 'cause now that's something's going to, something's going to break. But yeah, that's been fun, man. It's been super fun learning, having the opportunity to learn all that machinery and actually be able to keep it going. And that's been pretty cool. - Yeah, when I see your Instagram stories where you're cleaning out the anodizing line that I don't envy, but a lot of the rest of it seems very cool actually 'cause there's, you know, I love problem solving and I love understanding things and developing processes that are better and, you know, just improving on the ways that things are done. And I think there's a lot of opportunity for that kind of stuff where you're at. I know we'll get into it a little bit later, but, you know, you're working on building some tooling for the spoke drilling machine and, you know, that sort of like, how do we make this suck a little bit less? That sort of stuff is pretty cool. - Yeah, for sure. That's kind of the biggest stuff that we've been working on recently is, you know, trying to figure out how to streamline our whole process much better. You know, we used to do, you know, minimum batches of, like, 200 rims. But if you, and the reason for that is to make sure we are efficient enough in our production to still be able to make money. But the problem with that is, the reason we did that is because the machines took so long to set up between, you know, between models. So you gotta go from, like, a 20-inch cliffhanger to a 700-C ale around or something like that to change the drill over and the roller, you know, every other machine to go, you know, between those two models is just a ton of work. And so you want to do that as least as you possibly can so that most of the time you're running, you're actually making rims. And that's good, and that's efficient for manufacturing. However, if some guy orders his 20-inch cliffhanger and we just ran out and we're not scheduled to be drilling those until, you know, two months from now, you know, that guy's probably not gonna buy a 20-inch cliffhanger. He's probably gonna go find some other 20-inch rim we can buy that will ship immediately. (laughing) So what we've been doing mostly is trying to shorten the setup times of the machines and get it so that we can only do, like right now, we're down to 50 rim batches, which is obviously a massive improvement, you know, we can justify setting up our machines for a run of 50. And that means that we can much more quickly, you know, service the customer who's ordering something that we might not have in stock right now. Chances are we're gonna be making it, you know, within a week. - Yeah, so that's huge. - Yeah, the, you know, the further I get into sort of, like CNC and manufacturing world and stuff, one of the big, I don't know, buzzwords or concepts that people talk a lot about is, you know, the Toyota method, just in time sort of production or lean manufacturing. And there's all different ways you can apply that. And I think some people get annoyed with that because it feels like there's some boss man up in the bureaucracy of a big corporation is trying to tell them how to run their shop. And I think that's probably an accurate description in some company environments. But anyway, I think there's also a lot of benefits to thinking about that, the big thing being that, like, if you have a bunch of, if the only way to be efficient is to do a huge batch, then you need to tie a bunch of time and a bunch of money into producing stuff. And then it just sits around because it's like half finished and you can't sell any of it until it's all done. And once it's all done, you have a huge inventory and a lot of money and time tied up in that inventory and your break even point on that is pretty far out. And so you might not be able to make payrolls, for your employees or whatever, and meanwhile you have thousands of dollars tied up in inventory, it costs money to store stuff, all these things. So like it makes sense that like if there's a way to change your process towards smaller batches without losing efficiency, that's great. And I remember in the bike frame building sort of example Carl Strong talking about that in interviews I had read years ago where he was saying that you know as he built his his frame building shop bigger through the 90s he realized that actually he was managing a lot more risk and things were sort of boom and bust and he would do contract manufacturing and maybe somebody wouldn't pay on time or something and then he would be left sort of you know almost he'd be like on the edge you know he wouldn't be very comfortable because he he was kind of spread out there and so you know scaling it back into a smaller operation really worked better for him and now it's pretty much just you know he makes the bikes the last 10 years or however long it's been it's just a simpler operation and so you know it something like velocity is never going to work at a tiny scale but yeah like those process improvements that you can make where it makes sense to do a small batch and it's still efficient that's awesome. I do a lot of that in my shop lately I'm trying to make it so that I can set up a job really easily so that it's easy to do a small batch and still be efficient. Yep yep exactly and we're you know we're studying the same stuff as velocity and that's the reason for all that. Yeah yeah so one of the big things that we should definitely talk about is the CNC machine so two years ago I was fed up with my job and I bought a CNC machine from 1996 it's a bridge port torque cut 22 it's a BT 40 6500 pound CNC milling machine three axis mill with a tool changer really cool machine I had that for about a year and a half and it was given me some trouble and I wanted to have maybe a more productive newer machine that was more reliable with some newer features and some other things and so I set out to buy a new machine and I set out to pawn off my old machine to one of my friends or something and I convince you to take it off my hands and so in this last fall here a couple months ago I sold that machine to you for pretty smoke and deal I think you moved it out to Michigan and you didn't have room for it at your house in your like personal garage right and you worked out a deal with the owners of velocity where it would it would live at velocity rent free and you would use it for the sorts of shop purposes and velocity related things but that you would own it and you'd be able to use it after hours for your own projects as well is that sort of the arrangement that you have yeah yeah yeah yeah and so you had never done CNC before and you hadn't done a whole lot with CAD but I've seen the stuff that you've been doing with manual machining and designing stuff the last couple years and I knew you'd take to it really quickly and you have and you've been making some really cool stuff with it um yeah I mean tell me about your side of that like you know you saw it and you wanted to take it and we we did it like what has it been like for you since you got it and what is some of the things that you have made and some of the things that you uh want to do with that machine yeah thank you man and thank you for uh giving me that deal because honestly I'm a cheap I'm a cheap bastard sometimes and I probably wouldn't have I probably wouldn't have gotten into CNC for another you know I don't even know five years maybe if you hadn't if you hadn't come to the deal and you totally I mean the capability that it unleashes is like absolutely insane so yeah totally the thing I'll say about just for public record here the machine broke three or four times in the time that I owned it and I would fix it and I paid a service guy to come out one time like four hundred bucks and he was there for like half an hour you know so you have an old machine and it runs and it's great and then when it stops running it's a huge nightmare it's a huge headache for production and um and I know that you're handy and you like fixing stuff and you're probably better fixing stuff than I am and so I got tired of fixing it and what I had was a limited window of time before I needed the shop space I didn't want to let it sit outside I when you have something that's kind of broken and you don't feel like fixing it before you sell it it's not worth much because you can't prove that it's just going to be a quick fix like who knows how much work is involved yeah and so it really wasn't worth that much on the general market and I had to get rid of it quickly so like being able to get it to you like I did want to give you a deal but I also felt like it wasn't really worth that much to anyone else at that point yeah totally I told you get that anyway um ironically it was a quick fix yeah it was just like the little the little proximity sensors uh for the for the carousel where it goes back back and forth and I just had to like clean them I did all I did was I like cleaned them and I adjusted them a little bit closer to like the thing that there's supposed to be in proximity with so it has done that fault it has done that fault like one time since then but that's it so I just I want to believe that that was a fluke and it's never going to do it again nice yeah yeah and if it does you know that's just the joys of owning an old machine but what you can do with it yeah yeah what you can do with it is is phenomenal especially I mean you know you've you've talked about this before but with you know with modern like CAD cam software being able to feed code to an old cheap machine I mean that's like as it's almost too easy I want to say that but it's also yeah that was a steep learning curve too it's learning I mean what I'm on what I'm using is Fusion 360 and I had never used it before and so then there I was like okay I've got the CNC machine but I can't do anything with it until I learned Fusion 360 so it was like everything I could do to to learn that program as quickly as I could just so that I could start using this new toy that I got and man that that was harder it was harder I mean I'm not even that good at that program yet but it's been harder to learn that program than it was to learn how to run the machine by far yeah yeah I always say like 90% of CNC machining happens at the computer you know you like if you if you just got a CNC machine and then you started machining and you had never really machined much then you would have a lot more struggles at the machine because workholding is kind of complicated and you know cutting tools cutting geometry you got to understand rigidity you got to get cool in access you got a chip evacuation oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of stuff but if you have the cursory background in that I think most of the most of the machining really happens at the computer and then the first time you run the program you just got to really watch it slow and have your your hands on the the feed hold button yeah yeah it totally makes sense so what I've made on it so far is kind of random little tools or you know I've made a few little random pieces for velocity so I've you know they've they've gotten some advantage out of it as well so far and I'm in the process of making a a drill fixture which will be a velocity project and that's going to be a pretty big project actually but I've started doing some machining of those parts that's been kind of fun but also kind of the biggest thing or the thing that I'm the most excited about is starting to make my own products just like what you did with the machine the machine is just going to hop around from like startup to startup I feel like yeah yeah that's that that's like I didn't I don't know if I gave you that stipulation but if you ever outgrow it you got to pass it on to somebody cool yeah exactly cool with it yeah it's a real sweet deal yeah but anyways what I mean is the you know obviously but what I made is a wheel a bike wheel lacing tool called a nipple tray and it comes with a nipple poker and it's he you just like dump some nipples on it and you pick up the nipples with with the poker and you can use that to then thread the nipple onto the spoke which is hard to do in a double wall rim you know the spoke is down inside the rim and you're trying to get this ring threaded on top but um so it's nice to have something that you can kind of manipulate it with but I can the day when you guys had those those B43 those are massive yeah for anyone who doesn't know velocity you know they're known for like the deep v rim back in like the you know 2006 fixie craze or whatever but but then they made for bike polo enthusiasts or whatever they made an even taller side wall rim that was was it 43 millimeters tall yeah yep that's right I don't know how you'd even roll that extrusion without it just going all wavy so well apparently you can well that's funny because apparently when they when they first started trying to make that rim and this is before my time there this is just the story that I've heard but um they you know they made it a double wall rim at first and then they and then they rolled it but it just kept buckling in the middle of course it wouldn't like it wouldn't hold its shape and uh so they ended up adding it's either it's one or two more walls so it's like I think it's a triple wall rim there's like another brace that goes across the middle and it's just there to make the to make it rollable to make it so the middle doesn't just cave in that had to have been a really hard rim to roll yeah those are heavy I remember I don't know why I guess I used to be more of like a gram counter and also sort of a velocity fanboy and I remembered that like the uh what was it like the a23 rim in 700 c was like 415 grams or yeah I want to say it was somewhere in there and I think the B43 was like 750 or 800 it was a lot it was quite a bit heavier it wasn't just a little bit it was like and by the time you get you know all the spokes in the wheel and stuff and that's like the the rotational mass of course that anyone cares about bikes would know this obviously but yeah like all the mass out toward the end that you feel it oh yeah you feel it yeah I mean especially when when you you know it's one thing for like a cheap bike of course it's going to have heavy wheels but when you spend hundreds of dollars on your wheel set and you lace it up and then to have that sluggish of a wheel set that's yeah I guess it was like marketed at bike polo I think especially yeah I think so too bike polo and just anybody that wanted that like crazy deep section rim just for the way that it looked you know that's you bought it yeah well I used to play bike polo a little bit here when we had it's it's hard to get enough people in this relatively small town together to play bike polo I love bike polo but anyway yeah you can like I guess you can kind of like use the rim as like a as a tool sometimes if you have that toss and all then you can like deflect the ball off of it and then also you just want some heavy duty so when you inevitably crash all the time you're not yeah with yeah totally it was bike polo I mean the mallet's always smacking to your front rim so you want it to be pretty dent resistant and if you're if you're the goalie yeah you know you totally want as much blocking that ball from going to the going into the net as you possibly can so you have a tall side wall definitely it definitely gets used though yeah so I'm totally derailing the discussion here but anyway you're talking about your your spoke nipple tray which was a something you designed and CAD well and then you machine on on the machine and and it has a use for real building yeah exactly and that so that's been kind of my first product or first you know one of the beauties of a CNC machine is you can repeat repeat repeat like super super easily and yeah really accurately and so once you do all the design work it's kind of like well geez why wouldn't I make you know is many of these as I possibly can so that's been kind of my first project where I'm trying to you know see if I can see if I can offer something for sale I guess and see if people buy it and several people have and you know thank you to who were early adapters and bought that thing and you know I appreciate it that's that's been super fun so the things that I noticed when I see the the rustle makes spoke nipple tray is that it's very pretty you know you have the anodizing line a velocity and it's not just that you run that but you know a lot about anodizing you've been to anodizing conferences you can do custom colors yeah and like mixtures of colors you're you're very proficient and good at anodizing and it's it's messy work and not that many people have you know the opportunity to get that good at it unless they just work at some anodizing facility but they're all anodized they're they're they're pretty colors and then it's you know shiny aluminum and the design of it I think is looks good what I'm curious about is like when it comes to spoke nipple trays those have existed prior to years right oh yeah totally yeah but you know you just kind of you lay on the spoke nipples and shake it and it orients them so you can pick them up easily uh yeah so that's yeah you just pull them on there and the skinny parts drop down into the slots and it you know it makes them so they're all heads up and then you can pick them up from there so that's all the trays really for and then if you guys have something like like at the wheel building bench of velocity did you have those yeah we had pretty much it's pretty much the same thing it's pretty similar I changed the design a little bit to make it easier to machine out of aluminum because I wanted it to be aluminum because it's cool but the ones that we had uh have velocity and we still have them there are made out of plastic and I think they were I think they were made by time or while times of the guys who started the factory by one of our owners I think he made those years ago just on the manual milling machine that was that velocity that is actually now in my garage but I think they were made on that machine so I don't know it's kind of it it felt like a good project to get the CNC machine into velocity and then you know a new and improved nipple tray but of course it's that was my project I you know I did it all in my own time so it ended up being a rustle makes nipple tray yeah well and you know when you get proficient with the CAD CAM process and the CNC machine you can make stuff pretty easily so you know as you have ideas for tools and and fixtures and things around velocity that'll help with production uh you know the the more experienced you are with using that machine and that process the more quickly you'll be able to bang through some project for something and there's all sorts of stuff like that all the time uh you know we're just simple little tool but okay it's got to have this geometry here and it's got to have a hole for this with this kind of clearance and then it'll allow me to do this yada yada big bang boom uh can become pretty quick to to make that stuff when you are familiar with the process so it's good to get up to speed you know with projects like this yeah totally what else I want to talk about uh well uh let's talk about the skim bike you know over the years following along with what you've been doing you know you've always had a shop go in the last I don't know five or eight years or something and you did metal fabrication in different side projects some automotive things and stuff on your motorcycles and different things and anyhow one of the things that one of your co-workers at velocity and some other folks have been doing the last couple years is this skim bike competition and it to me it is like one of the more fun and creative things that I've seen uh in uh it's just really cool so uh yeah give us like an explanation of what that is and uh and how you've contributed to it yeah totally so the the whole idea of a skim bike I'll tell you where that started uh a couple of my co-workers were at a local mountain biking trail they were they were mountain biking I'm not sad today or whatever and uh there's a the trail kind of goes around a lake and so at the end of the ride they went to the lake and they're just kind of putting a feed in the water on the dock and they're looking out at the boat launch and they're like mean if you came down that hill right there that was like the hill that led to that boat launch and you had skis on your bike you could totally once you hit the water you could totally just like skim out across the water and be cool to see how far you could get you know and so that's where the idea came from and then as we were at all build wheels you know we all kind of built wheels in a circle all the wheel building benches are all set up kind of in a circle and see you all you know you can't help but talk to each other all day long and so for years we would we would joke around about you know how we were building our skim bikes and uh you know oh my design this year is going to be you know it's going to be so good and basically we were just talking shit for years saying that we were building skim bikes but nobody ever actually did it and nobody ever you know actually showed up on the on the day which was always supposed to be labor day and so you know every at the end of every labor day we'd show up on Monday morning and you know you know where were you at I was down there you know but nobody nobody was ever down there but anyways one year I said I'm I said I'm tired of this I want this thing to happen so I I built one I really built one and I convinced one other guy my friend Jeff Jacobi I convinced him you know I said dude I'm seriously building one and I'm seriously going to be there and so he built one and so not this past year but the year before that him and I both showed up and we competed against each other and we both did about the same you know it's kind of a draw he says he won of course but whatever but uh yeah so we did that and then and then the second annual was this past labor day and we had what we have I think six people and more I can't remember now exactly but there were a lot of people that showed up and also made skim bikes so we had like a we had like a regular old skim bike competition it was a blast man it's that's one of those things in like little groups in cycling like that that is so cool because it's just people who are just trying to have fun and they're into bikes and like what wacky thing can we do to like spice this up a little bit and so it's cool it's cool when you get a group of people together that I like mine good and like I just want to do for round for a day yeah no I love that you so you took like a garage sale bike or something you know that you got real cheap and you you used some of your sheet metal tools and stuff yeah and uh you know you're you're take wilder you're make wilder something you a little bit of square tube and you built sort of a a little I don't know a sled sort of ski that would ride just like two inches above the ground and you were pedaling this bike on the on the boat launch you come at it with 10 miles an hour or something 15 whatever it is and then and then you just lean back when you hit the water and ski as far as you could and so I was watching your Instagram stories from afar uh when you're doing that and it was really fun I mean it's just really exciting like to see the camaraderie of that sort of thing happening yeah but then also to see the that you having no experience with this and it's not like skim bikes already existed and you can just look at what other people are doing. - Right. - Someone's probably done it before but there's not a whole lot of documentation about that, I'm sure. So you're trying to figure it out. And your first try actually seemed to work pretty well. You actually went like what? Like 20 feet or so, three feet into the water before you lose enough momentum and you just kind of plummet into the water. - Yeah, you got to drag the bike out. - And that's part of the rules. Once you come to a stop, your bike has to sink. It can't be a boat. Yeah, that's a good rule. - Yeah, you can't make it buoyant. So as far as you get, it's totally dependent on like, I mean, really, it's dependent on your momentum. If you can skim on the water, then it's just a matter of, I shouldn't be talking about this because, you know, this is. - If we all say it's a top secret knowledge, but once you can skim on the water, you just gotta go faster if you can get further out there. - Yeah, well, and so I'm watching on Instagram and, you know, you do your first pass and it works, and then you do another one, and then you just kind of keep getting a little more gusto to it. And then you really a shit, the one pass. - Oh, I mean, I broke it, I'm pretty hard. - I broke a river too, and I did that, but. - Yeah, really? - 'Cause the thing wasn't, I thought that the tires would give me a lot of drag in the water. And so I was like, I want the skis to be as close to the ground as I possibly can, you know? But the approach to the boat launch is on gravel, and of course gravel is bumpy. And so I'm like coming down the hill as fast as I can, and like kind of trying to make a slight left turn so you can get lined up with the boat launch. And as I'm doing that, you know, I just hit a bump, and everything's kinda, you know, no, the skis are welded to the bike. It's all steel, but it's like, you know, I just wanted to make it as a lightweight as I can, and so it's pretty lightweight stuff, and it's all, everything's all bouncing around. And anyways, the front ski just bit into the gravel, and you know, it's like, I don't know, it's like having your front wheel wash out, but it's like hitting a wall at the same time, and I just went completely over the bars, and just slammed it right, just my body slammed into the ground, man. Yeah, I broke a river, but I got back up, and I did another couple runs that day, and it's what you gotta do. - It's brutal. - Yeah. - So this event, you know, you've done two years now, and I assume you'll probably keep the traditional life. - Yeah, totally. - And it's open to the public, so anyone listening who has the inclination to do some really dumb, - Yeah. (laughing) - I might need to make a submission one of these years. - Yeah, man. - Like a trip out to Michigan for, so it's a Labor Day weekend, so a lot of people will have a little bit of extra time that weekend anyhow. - Yeah. - It's lovely Michigan weather, you know, late summer in Michigan is excellent. Where does this take place exactly? - So historically, it's taking place at deep lake campground in Middleville, Michigan, and it's just a tiny little campground that's off the beaten path, and it's in a real beautiful area. There's a mountain bike trail there, so if you're in the bike, you could, you know, you could go there earlier or watch the event, or show up and do the event, and go mountain biking later if you wanted to or whatever. But yeah, it's totally free, you know, it's just people goofing around. If you come, if you make a skim bike, and you come at noon on Labor Day at deep lake campground, you can absolutely compete and you know, you might win. - Yeah, but it's also, yeah, right at your own risk, right? - Oh, yeah. - It's pretty sketchy, it's dangerous. - Yeah, yeah, it's really cool. I would love to at least come some year, but you know, I should make some. - Yeah, man. - Gotta think about how I can cheat a little bit. - Just enough. - Yeah, just a little bit of cheating. - We gotta make a event page or something. There might have been an event page on Facebook last year. I can't remember in a pile of days out of all the rules and everything. - Yeah, you gotta, I've seen, you know, your Instagram story, and I think in your main Instagram feed, you compiled some of it, but if you still have those video clips around, it'd be really cool to put together something that was like more easily searchable on YouTube or something that maybe had like the whole story or maybe this next year, you can record a little bit more at the event and stitch it together or something or that's up to you. - Yeah, no, that's totally good idea. - There's a lot of things like that on Instagram that are sort of ephemeral and they'll be trapped in your mind forever. Like you'll remember this image or something and you want to tell somebody about it and it's kind of hard to convey always. - I think I've got, I think I've got it in my highlights. So like that whole story I think is that I've kept in my highlights if you look there. But yeah, that's a blast, man, it's just one of those, one of those things that you do, just for fun. - What strikes me as really especially cool about it is that there's so many funny sounding things that you'll think of with some buddies or something and nobody actually does that stuff, right? It's like we're all busy and we have, you know, whatever. But I think what really makes that kind of thing special is when you have some stupid idea and you actually do it. Like the follow through is something I have a lot of respect for when people like, you know, like wouldn't it be funny if and it's like, well, it's not that funny to just say it but it would be really funny if you actually did it and you guys actually did it and I think that's a special thing. I really, whether it's a stupid idea like that or whether it's just, you know, being bold and daring in your life and, you know, your career or whatever it is that you do, there's always such a big difference between talking about stuff and doing stuff inside. Admire that you did that and the same thing with, you know, I was trying to get rid of this machine and you're like, yeah, we'll see if I can take it and you know, you did and we moved to that machine ourselves. - Yeah. - Which was kind of dumb. That's a 6,500 pound machine that we moved on a rented trailer. - Yeah. - Like 400 miles. - With a sketchy tire and a ramp. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it may have happened. But anyway, I appreciate that about your project. So you have these nipple trays, you have a web store, you're slowly working at developing more stuff and more offerings and working your way through the CNC process. Meanwhile, you're also applying some of these machine capability and skill to manufacturing sort of process or findments at velocity, which I think is really cool. You know, there's competing considerations. When you make a product for sale, something like the nipple tray, I think a lot of it is fashion. You know, it's just like, it's satisfying to have a nice thing. Like I really love bikes and I like working on bikes and like this is just like a nice piece and I just want it to sit next to my truing stand so that when I build wheels, it's just like a satisfying process. It makes me feel good. I get to support this person. There's like, I think a lot of that, like it needs to work well, but it also needs to be pretty. And when you're making tools for like a boat drilling machine in a factory, it doesn't need to be pretty at all. And so it's kind of an interesting challenge. It's kind of fun to shift gears and to operate a little bit in both spaces because I love making pretty stuff. And I also love when you don't need to worry about that. You know, there's a lot of fun. - Yeah, totally. Yeah, both have their points. It's kind of fun. I kind of like making stuff that's not pretty because it frees you from that. Like you can just focus on, you know, the complete functionality of the thing. But even when you do that, you know, sometimes you can't help, but especially with the CNC stuff. Like you mentioned this drill plate again. The uprights on it, which, you know, I don't know. We're not gonna be able to show pictures or whatever, but the feature of it that's like a little pedestal and in there's six of them. And as I was modeling these pedestals, I don't think, okay, well, it needs to be this dimension. And so I'm like drawing rectangles and stuff and then I'm like trimming corners off 'cause I was like, well, it really doesn't need to be any material here, you know, but there could be. But I'm just like, I'm just like knocking it off 'cause I'm modeling it and it's easy enough to do. And well, I guess I can make it look a little bit better. And, you know, I might as well put a little fillet on this corner. No, yeah, I guess that looks kind of better. So when you're like, when you're not the one like filing the corner off, it's easy to just try and make everything pretty, I don't know. - Yeah, well, also, I mean, you know, if you're in there with an island wrench adjusting and some of that stuff can be a knucklebuster, so. - Yeah, totally, a bunch of square corners, yeah. - Yeah, I'm really excited to see what you do with that machine in the future 'cause it has a huge amount of capability. You know, even in the time that I had it, I used it a lot, but you know, with fixturing, you can get so much more out of it than what I even did. You know, if you had lots of dense fixturing, you could let it run for a longer period of time at once and it was a lot of cool stuff. I think that the tool changer has 22 pockets. And I don't think I ever ran a program that used more than like 10 or 12 tools. You know, there's a lot that can be done with that. - Yeah, the way I've been using the tool changers, I just have, I have tools, I've been loading the tools and I haven't really had to take many out, other than a few like small occasions where it's just a tool that I have never even used and I'm like, why did I even put that in there? But, you know, I just load it up and I have like a bunch of end mills for aluminum that I know what pockets they're in. And so when I write programs, I just know that, you know, tool number nine is the half inch carbide, three flutes. and mail that I use for aluminum, and that's just, it's always the same. I don't know. I like that work, that work floats. Yeah. Really intuitive to me. Yeah, that's what I do with my new machine. Yeah. But yeah, it's super fun learning how to use that thing, and I mean, I'm barely, I've barely, you know, cropped in this sort of stuff. I'm just, I'm barely able to, at least this is how I feel. I'm barely able to, like, kind of reliably make something, hopefully the first try that is pretty much how I wanted it to be. You know, maybe it needs a little adjustment here and there, but yeah, it's been fun learning all that. Yeah. So another project that you've done over the years that I think is pretty cool. Not super related to fabrication or, or frame building, but is your, your, your wheelie wheelie wander project. You know, you, you had ridden BMX and some other stuff when you're younger and as an adult a couple of years ago, you figured out you could wheelie and it wasn't terribly hard and you got pretty good at it. And so you made this, like an Instagram account and where you just wheelie down really steep and big hills and you record it with your GoPro. And you made a GoPro mount, you fabricated a GoPro mount for your helmet too, I think, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But you're like going down like the steepest hill in Pittsburgh and like, tell us about that project some. Oh, yeah, I mean, that's another one of those ideas where, you know, yeah, like you said, I kind of, you know, I grew up riding BMX and I learned how to ride manuals, which is just like coasting wheelies. Basically, you lean back a little and then you just ride on the rear wheel as long as you can. You adjust your balance by bending your knees and kind of like shifting your bodyway forward and back. So I knew how to do that already, but I never really learned how to really like pedal, like sit up on the, on the seat of like a mountain bike or whatever and just pull up a wheelie and just pedal and just go for like, you know, because there's people, it seems like they can go forever, you know, so I was like, I want to learn how to do that. So I just started, I just started trying it basically and, you know, every day, it's one of those ridiculous things that you do for whatever reason, but anyway, it was fun and I did it. And so I just got better, better, better, better, and then eventually, you know, I thought, you know, it's kind of fun to like wheelie down a hill because you, you can toast, you know, up the pedal, you can toast because you're going down a hill and you just, you just ride the brake just as gently as you possibly can. And so you're kind of using the brake to find your balance point. It's like, I mean, I'm going down hills is super fun, except now when I go down a big hill, you know, my brake when I get toward the bottom, and I had this brakes, I had pretty good disc brakes, but when I get toward the bottom, the brake was feeling like super squishy. And because it is really high, you know, and so I went and got like, I got the baddest ass brake that I could find. What is it? It's a hope, it's like a hope, two or three millimeter rotor, vent, vented rotor, downhill, non-biking brake. It's a bad ass brake. And I put it on the rear end of my old karate monkey, and that's what I do really done normally. And I, and I just started sending it down steeper and steeper hills. And the whole time I've been, you know, making videos and posting videos of like all these hills that I am wheeling down and then I went out to, I exhausted pretty much every hill in Grand Rapids, which is the city I live in. And when a few other places in Michigan, like surrounding cities, and maybe if I was on vacation, I'd bring my bike, and if I found something cool to wheelie, I didn't wheelie that and record it. Like I did Niagara Falls when I came out and visited you. Nice. Yeah. Anyways, you didn't go over the falls. No, I just like, yeah, like around where you walk. But anyways, yeah, I just kept doing it. And then eventually I went and visited a friend of mine in Portland, Oregon. And wheelie to bunch of hills out there. And you know, it's more mountainous out there. So there's some pretty pretty big hills, bigger hills than I had ever done. But I still did them, you know, I still did them like first try. And you know, growing up riding DMX, you kind of expect to crash at some point. Like if you keep pushing it, eventually you're going to crash. It's got to happen. But it never happened. Like I didn't crash. It kind of that break was so good. And I just got good at it. Like when, if you're doing a wheelie and you got to break that at any point, if you just give it a good squeeze, it'll get your front wheel down. You're going to be fine. Yeah, once you develop that sort of reflex. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I guess as long as you know, like how far is too far when you can't do that anymore. But anyways, going on a tangent about the break. But you know, I just kept going down steeper and steeper hills. And finally, you know, I got back from Portland. And I was like, wow, you know, where can I go? It has even steeper hills. And I've heard that Pittsburgh has some pretty steep hills. And so I went there and I did a whole whole season of videos. There was like eight or nine videos of Pittsburgh hills in the last video in that series, which is the last one that I've done. Because I don't even know what to do from here, but it said that when I got to the hill, I got I walked over to the top and there was a sign that said this is the steepest street in the continent of the United States. And I look down and it's all like paved with brick and the brick is like trying to like fall out of the road because it's not steep. And they're all like, you know, they're all like top forward. And so all the it's not it's not like a flat brick brick road. All the bricks are like pointed up. So if I were to fall, I'm falling on like like a serrated. Oh my god. Yeah. And brick road. And you're not just going to fall and hit the ground. It's like you'd be like basically tumbling down the stairs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, I did really that hill. I mean, I didn't really so I really the whole brick portion and then it turns to concrete. And then there's a street like right at the bottom of the hill. There's a there's a cross street and it's a dead end road. And so I really down the whole brick portion and then set the front wheel down and got on the brakes as hard as I could and skidded across the whole street and almost hit a truck that was like parked in the in the part in the driveway like across the street. So, you know, I feel like I feel like I really the whole thing, but also I didn't really the whole thing. But if I would have really anymore, I would have like crashed into a house. So I really as far as I could. That's so cool. I'm such a I'm such a soft spot for like stupid tricks and like like like party tricks and smoking mirrors, like, you know, the kind of stuff that it's so dumb, but I just love it. Like, you know, I can kind of, you know, track stand a fixie, which is like not that cool, but I can do that sort of and I can. There's just like a couple little things that I can do on a bike. I'm just not I'm not that good at doing like tricks and stuff or I can do this stupid thing where I can open a beer can by just driving my thumb straight through the side wall of the can and that makes me feel really cool. That sort of stuff like actual actual skill to be able to go down a hill like that I think is it's like on your deathbed doesn't matter that much. Did it really contribute that much to society? I don't know. Maybe I won't regret not being able to manual. Although you're really good at it. So like, I think that's a little bit different. But, yeah, there's something cool about about this. Like, it's just, you know, it's just fun to live a little bit. Yep. Totally. You got to get the blood pumping once in a while. So I say. Yeah. And for anyone who hasn't seen those with the Instagram account is like wheelie wanderer. Yeah, wheelie wanderer. I haven't actually uploaded a video in a long time. Ever since I did that Pittsburgh Hill because, you know, I don't know. It was fun to do like steeper and steeper hills. But now I got to travel super far to find a steeper one. And I don't know. That was apparently the steepest one in the US. So I got to go to like Hawaii or Alaska. I got to go out of to China someplace. I like, I don't know. Plus I get up the Annie even more, you know, it's glad you didn't wreck yourself on that one. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. Is that like the the dirty does under something? There's like a there's like a cycling event that happens in Pittsburgh that involves climbing like the steepest hills in the city. And it's totally bonkers and I have friends who'll do that. So I'll see their sort of like you know Instagram stories and stuff when they go to do that. And yeah, I'm familiar. Those streets are incredibly steep. Yeah. Yeah. And those are the, yeah, those are the streets that I did. I modeled it. I wanted to do all of the streets in the race. But that was only there for one day. And I did nine of them. So that was as much as I can fit in. And it was. Dude, I mean, I did. That's a lot. It was a lot. And I did it all in one day. And I, you know. I was on my bike. I was riding my bike around town. I was kind of driving to I kind of drive to the hill But then I'd have to ride up the hill and then wheelie down it That's crazy and on a single speed honestly. Yeah on a single speed mountain bike with DMX bars on it basically and You know, I didn't always make it or I didn't always make the whole hill first try sometimes I had to try You know three or four times at the hill to get it to get down the whole thing and You know, that means I had to climb it that many times. So that was a that was a hard day. I mean That's awesome. Yeah Cool, man. Well What's what's next for for Russell makes do you have anything that you want to share about? What's next? Yeah, man. I don't know Just yesterday we were talking you and I were talking about me the idea of me doing a wheel building video series to kind of teach you how to build wheels and I'm kind of getting excited about that. I might be that Yeah, you have a ton of experience building wheels and I think you have good video production skills and I think you're I don't know if I've seen you explain that many things. I think you would be very good at that. Yeah I've taught a couple people how to build wheels kind of casually in in velocity Or at least given them tips here and there you know and You know when I'm when I'm really familiar with something like I am with wheel building. I can teach it pretty well If I feel like I know it inside and out You know, I feel like I can be a pretty good teacher. I can explain things pretty well. So You know, and I know I know wheel building really well and I've got access to You know all kinds of you know, it's easy for me working at velocity to be able to build a wheel with Bladed spokes and show what that's about or build a wheel with double-budded spokes and show You know what that's about and why that's better what the advantages are and all that so I can dive into all that You know if that's something that anybody Would be interested and I mean, I'm probably gonna do it But if that's you know, if somebody is listening like dude that I would totally Take a wheel building course online You know find me on Instagram ruffle makes on Instagram And I hit me do shoot me a DM or whatever and let me know Maybe that will help push me forward, but yeah, it's something I think I want to do and all I got to do is do it I've got the equipment so yeah nothing to it, but to do it You know when I started making YouTube videos about frame building my motivation was to Provide content for people who are interested in the market that I serve that helps me Promotionally, it's also something that you know, I love frame building for like a decade and I have a little bit of experience I'm really not nearly as experienced as most of the people who are guests on this show You know I built a 19 or so bicycles somewhere in there and I've done them a certain way I'm really not an expert about frame building and I don't have a lot of authority But since YouTube is free, you know, I just make some videos throw them up there if people want to watch them They can watch them if they don't you know They get to see the way that one one relative amateur gets it done in their shop and so there's some value there But like I just don't have that level of expertise that you know like someone like Brad Bingham or you know Anyone who's built lots and lots of bikes Carl strong did a couple YouTube videos They weren't in depth, but he showed sort of his process and I've watched those videos like a hundred times To try and glean every last little tip out of those You know, that's it's really a useful resource and so I compare what I did with frame building I'm just I was just making content to show a way to do it It might be a useful starting point for some people or a useful point of reference for someone who's done it a lot Their way to see a different way, but for you if you were making content about wheel building you build a ton of wheels Yeah, and you know quite a bit of different styles I mean most of them have been velocity rims, I suppose, but like you've done quite a bit of wheel building and You know really you're you're quick at it. You know what to lose sleep over and what not to lose sleep over There's a big difference there, you know all my favorite youtubers are not just amateurs who are having fun Most of them are people who are really good at what they do and so I appreciate the expertise that goes into You know something like that. Yeah, yeah, I always appreciate that Yeah, I have built a lot of wheels, I put a lot of you know, I'm pretty detail-oriented person and you know Doing one thing for that long you figure out a lot of little tips and tricks and so it'd be cool to be able to share that and Like people get some use out of that information Yeah, yeah, I think one of the biggest things that comes with experience is like Learning what not to lose sleep over I guess right cuz like I think when you're new to something somebody says like oh, you know Like for instance like welding. They're like cleaning cleaning cleaning You really need to clean and you do but also like or like you know prepping and all that stuff And then the other thing is like the other side of that coin is that when you're really good at something You know how to do that efficiently and you know where the line is where like you know if you don't get it This clean. It's really not gonna work and if you get it cleaner than this and you keep cleaning then you're just wasting your time And like that's the stuff where like when you don't know and I'm sure it's like that with wheel building where like you want to get the Tensions balanced or you want to you want to all these little things that that come into not just doing it But like doing it really well and yeah, I'd love to take that class or watch the video series or however it is presented Anyhow well, that's most of the questions and most of the the point of the interview so thanks for taking the time to be on the show Can't see can't wait to see what you do next. Yeah, man. Thanks. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me and Then fun chat Yeah, cool. Talk soon. Yeah, man. Yeah You