g n a t

Out of a sense of mechanical curiosity, but even more driven by student/musician lifestyle-imposed poverty, I began tinkering with my own bikes many years ago. Lots of adventures through lots of years eventually led me, in the summer of 2002, to Ashland, Oregon, specifically to attend three weeks' worth of advanced mechanics's courses at United Bicycle Institute; after that three weeks, I left Oregon with a bunch of new bike tools and a few advanced bicycle mechanic's certifications. By autumn of 2002, I was living the crazy, lucrative, rock-star life familiar to every full-time bicycle mechanic, and have been plugging away at that craft ever since.

I went back to UBI in early 2005 to see what framebuilding in steel was all about, and in 2006 I commenced framebuilding in steel - that was the birthtime of Wildebeest Bicycles.

In 2015, I got further book-learned through yet another mechanics' course of study at Barnett Bicycle Institute, in Colorado Springs.

I put a hold on framebuilding while recreating life in a new part of the world, but after a few years of doing other things, most not nearly rewarding enough, I rebuilt my business (with the assistance of many supportive folks, without whom I could not have gotten to this point) as a new version of the Vast Production Facility - the FabulousFabricationLaboratory (or fabFABLab) in Albuquerque.

Wow; okay...

That is a tragically short distillation of nearly two decades of my time on this planet, but for the purposes of this website that is what you get. If you are ever in the area of the Wildebeest fabFAB, and you feel the need to view proof of these outlandish claims, I will be glad to show you the expensive certificates and the ever-growing collection of tools.

That is all for now - either go wander around the rest of this website, or turn off the computer and go outside.