About Van Hazewinkel

       A little bit about me. I have loved bicycles since my Dad unbloted the training wheels. I still get that "Whee" feeling when I ride, be it on my road bike, mountain bike, or my 1947 Colson. Soon after High School I ended up with a part time job at The Pedal Pusher, a vintage bike shop in Newport Beach, California. While there I built a 1953 Schwinn DX into what we called, "roadsters". It was eye opening to discover that with careful parts selection and detailed assembly I ended up with a bike that rode much better than what I started with. After working at the Pedal Pusher I went to work at Rainbow Bicycles in Laguna Beach, California, where I was the mechanic. After a couple of years at Rainbow Bicycles an opportunity to work at Sea Schwinn (now Two Wheels One Planet) presented itself and  I went to work there. I started out in sales, but when they found out how good a mechanic I was I soon became the Service Manager. About this time I was also hot rodding a 1954 Chevy Pickup. I took out the straight six and put in a V-8, installed an independent front suspension, and disc brakes. It became my daily driver for the next ten years. While working at Sea Schwinn was great, a chance to work at the family Industrial Supply business was too good to pass up. In addition to learning about running the front office, I learned about cutting tools and working with metal. Around this time I stopped riding bicycles for awhile. I had bought my first place, a condo in Tustin, CA. While it is a great city to walk around in, there aren't many bike lanes and I never felt comfortable riding there. Eight years later I met my wife and moved back to Costa Mesa. I dusted off my bicycle and started riding again. I had always wanted a track bike (before they were called fixies) and decided to build my own. I built my own frame jig and bought a set of lugs and tubing and went to work. I had leaned to braze at Orange Coast College when I took welding 101. The bike turned out great! There is something very satisfying about taking a pile of inanimate parts and tubing and turning it into a kinetic sculpture. My first bike rode so well that I quickly built a road bike with the same geometry. I wanted to build a mountain bike frame next, but that would need to be TIG welded. I practiced on the left over tubing from my first builds. Welding thin walled bicycle tubing was turning out to be quite a challenge. I thought I could keep trying to figure it out on my own, which might take a while, or I could get some help from someone who had done it before. I decided on taking a frame building class from Mike Flannigan of Ant Bicycles. I learned so much form Mike and had a great time while I was at his shop. With this knowledge I am able to use my years of building, tuning and riding bicycles into the fabrication and assembly of custom handcrafted bicycles built for your intended purpose.