Moth Attack

[mothattack]

Favorite homemade tools
Visual influence(s)
Best race scene

As I do less track bikes and more braze ons, I'm playing with more homemade holders and doing a lot of digging around my dad's shop for things to re appropriate for bike uses. I'm still lamenting the abandonment of the bench I built in Boulder and left in the last move. It was perfect, and impossible to move. hah

I'll probably always take some style from the punk stuff. I was a photography student in college before I dropped out and moved and I was absolutely in love with Glen E Friedman. I worked with a lot of guys years ago who were all graffiti nerds so I spent a lot of time painting around them and got a good introduction to the more contemporary stuff that came from that scene/skateboarding. My logos were put together by a tattoo artist and friend of mine. I asked him to do it because I liked his work and I've always loved tattoos and classic tattoo artwork.

I haven't been too hot on racing the last few years, so I'm a little dated here. My favorite time spent racing on a track has been at Alpenrose in Portland. I was able to make a couple of their AVC events and in 2009 got the chance to race their 6 day madison event. 6 days of hard racing and everyone still went out to party together afterward.

My other favorite event(s) have been ultra distance stuff. I ended up on a team racing the Furnace Creek 508 in 2006 and I've hardly missed the event since as either a rider or working support. It wasn't always complimentary to track racing, but it was/is a super fun scene. Extremely friendly with a lot of cool weirdos.

[Too Tall]

Woah, small world. I coached a guy at the 508 for two finishes. LOL hand me a beer someday I'll tell you how I lost my rider on the course and Fuzzy bailed me out. Not my most shiny moment.

[Badonkadonk]

i saw one of your frames online like a year or so ago and thought it was so badass i bought a black Moth Attack t-shirt just like in the group shot. karma is weird - just by chance i wore it today skiing in VT with the family. so keep building hot frames, i know there's probably a bunch of us that want one someday!

ps - garro never asked me what music i liked, or how old i was, or if i come here often. what's up with that??

[mothattack]

Woah, small world. I coached a guy at the 508 for two finishes. LOL hand me a beer someday I'll tell you how I lost my rider on the course and Fuzzy bailed me out. Not my most shiny moment.

Awww, Fuzzy! That guy was the best and one of the characters who made me appreciate that scene for sure. It's not on the internet, unfortunately, but he did an on-camera explanation of bonobos poly-amorous mating habits when we made a short doc about the first team we did. Tragically, it didn't make the trailer...

[mothattack]

i saw one of your frames online like a year or so ago and thought it was so badass i bought a black Moth Attack t-shirt just like in the group shot. karma is weird - just by chance i wore it today skiing in VT with the family. so keep building hot frames, i know there's probably a bunch of us that want one someday!

ps - garro never asked me what music i liked, or how old i was, or if i come here often. what's up with that??

Thanks! That's awesome! I've run across my shirts in some far-flung places. I love it!

[Amaro Bikes]

Welcome Megan, good to have another smoked out post to read/learn/enjoy. I hope you keep it going

Since you started building, how has your bicycle perspective changed/evolved?

And glad to have a non-pink girl with attitude around here.

[steve garro]

ps - garro never asked me what music i liked, or how old i was, or if i come here often. what's up with that??

Who are you?

Yeah……growing up in the punk scene was defining - I always wondered why Vegas didn't have more big acts, seem like allot to be rightfully indignant about & lots of venues!

Megan, do you try to live near a velodrome, hence moving to CO?

Vegas doesn't have one, right?

- Garro.

[Yokeiseasy]

Glad to see you here, Megan.

I just recently came across some of your stuff on IG and enjoyed it.

I saw last week that you'll be in my neck of the woods for the Philly expo, I look forward to seeing your work in person.

[mothattack]

Since you started building, how has your bicycle perspective changed/evolved?

I definitely started out feeling more like I was making art. It pretty quickly evolved into making bikes that I thought looked cool, but functioned as well as possible for their intended use/rider. I will always find the finished product gratifying though, I'm sure.

I did have a brief period of time where I absolutely hated bikes a few years back. It wasn't their fault, but it certainly took some distancing for a while to get over it. It was less about building and more about having absolutely nothing else in my life than going from bike advocacy work during the day to building at night and volunteering at a couple different bike organizations and trying to work as a USAC official and maintain presence on the board of directors of a velodrome. I even took up running long distances to get a break. I quit everything but building for a while and it worked itself out at least.

[mothattack]

Who are you?

Yeah……growing up in the punk scene was defining - I always wondered why Vegas didn't have more big acts, seem like allot to be rightfully indignant about & lots of venues!

Megan, do you try to live near a velodrome, hence moving to CO?

Vegas doesn't have one, right?

- Garro.

I could talk about punk in Vegas forever. The city just doesn't allow venues to keep going for all ages (we used to take generators to the desert and have bands play in the middle of nowhere) and so many folks leave as soon as the can (me), and the rest give up, get married, have a few kids or do drugs and OD. It's more or less still on the same cycle 10+ years after I initially moved away.

I do try and stay near velodromes. It's about the only sanctioned racing I have any interest in these days, and it's a frame I think I'll always love to build. I've looked at staying nearer to the Boulder Valley Velodrome for it.

Vegas has toyed with the idea off and on, but I don't expect it will happen. They considered putting up a temp during Interbike a few years back which sparked a permanent proposal that included betting. It'd be great if they went through with it. I suspect it would boost the popularity nationwide if there was more money to be made for everyone.

[Too Tall]

Worth mentioning is S,Carolina what with the Giordana Velodrome and greenville's pro-bicycle enterprise zone that has got to be a place you would dig.

[edoz]

Are you satisfied with your skill set as a whole, or are there things you want learn and maybe branch out in to?

[Giff Holmquist]

Yup, Boulder has their new velodrome and the velodrome down here in the Springs is getting a roof for year round racing.

velo.jpg

Seems like a great fit back in CO.

[Too Tall]

Woah the Co.Springs Track gets a roof?! Holy cow there are going to be some fast times thrown down.

Yup, Boulder has their new velodrome and the velodrome down here in the Springs is getting a roof for year round racing.

velo.jpg

Seems like a great fit back in CO.

[Giff Holmquist]

Yup. They've detailed the plans and posted progress pics on their Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/otcvelodrome?ref=br_tf

Newscast about the plans:

[mothattack]

Are you satisfied with your skill set as a whole, or are there things you want learn and maybe branch out in to?

I'm pretty much never satisfied with anything being 'enough.' I don't know where that will end; if ever? It's a good sort of curiosity and drive to have anyway. I just epoxied a carbon seat tube in to my new stainless road bike, so that's a potential next thing to explore. Mixing metal and composites, but I'd like to ride the hell out of it first myself.

I can see myself picking up tig as well, but I'm not sure how that will play in to frames. I don't want to get ahead of myself there, and am trying to not complicate anything with as much transition as I've had going on. I certainly know how to overextend myself. I was fortunate enough to spend some time hanging out with Eric Baar, watching him weld and soaking up his years at it while in the Springs for racing.

As soon as I have a place I'm confident I'm not moving from any time soon I'll start looking at adding some machines to the process. My wrists won't let me file every bike by hand in 20 years.

[mothattack]

The Springs track was cool to begin with. Super nice to see it get some attention. I assume it'll push some of the National team folks back that way from LA as well who want the altitude and don't want to travel in and out of Compton to train every day.

[steve garro]

My wrists won't let me file every bike by hand in 20 years.

After fillet brazing for 12 solid all my joints are jacked as fuck……..and that's with a very minute amount of hand mitering & doing as much brass work with machine help as possible - it's hard on you, and it sneaks up.

- Garro.

[Eric Estlund]

Or rages in a blitz attack.

I've scheduled my work flow in part to help minimize (not eliminate) the wear and tear. As much as we talk about the lack of need for heavier equipment to build "a" bike, a certain level of tooling can help with the day in and day out.

[mothattack]

It's not even sneaking up. I've hated to admit how much taking up yoga has helped, but it really has helped work out the kinks. Or some of them. The rest I seem to have improved by changing how I'm working, but I'm pretty sure my body hated me already.