Thursday, January 28, 2016

The Dojo 1st Annual Swap Meet.


Here you go, thaw out from that winter bullshit and come to our swap meet. Our yard outside of the shop is big enough to set up a decent amount of vendors. We'll supply the space and you supply your own parts, pop up tent, etc. Bring me all of the knucklehead parts. We'll have beer.

Monday, January 18, 2016

We have a new shop.

 The time had come to find a new Dojo. Our old shop was fine, fun, etc.... But for those of you that had been there, know how small the building was and that it was packed to the gills. I am impressed that so many of us built bikes out of there at the same time. We were there for roughly 5 years? Generally, most of us end up with more bikes rather than getting rid of one to make room for another. You can imagine how your patience gets tested being in a 900sf shop shared by 10 dudes with multiple bikes. So, it was time. I had been searching for property in our area for a while, but I really had to hit it hard and stop fucking around. After craigslist ads led me on wild goose chases, to people that owned multiple buildings, to owners that seemed stoked on what we do...... I ended up with an address:


 It's at the end of a street in an area of town that we are always in and somewhat affordable, so we pursued it.


This is how it looked the day that we got inside. Much needed space.



After paperwork, footwork, and all kinds of shit that I won't get into, we got the building and started figuring out spaces.


This is the old shop the day that we got everything out. This gives you a good comparison of size difference. Imagine this spot filled with tool boxes and bikes, and you can understand why this was about to mentally break us.



The new Dojo works like this: Each person has their workspace, and can do whatever they want to their workspace. If you want to be a slob, cool. If you want to actually work on bikes and be productive, cool. If you want to go to margaritaville and jam with Jimmy Buffet every afternoon, cool. Just don't let that shit flood into someone else's spot. Simple. This was the start of my spot as an example.


 Slowly but surely, we are getting the place in order.



I think the first major thing that we will host at the new place will be a swap meet. We literally filled a covered trailer to the roof with parts after cleaning out the old shop and a swap meet would be a good excuse to get rid of a lot of it. Welcome to the Dojo.