A Western Roll PT4QHQ

Max kindly welcomed us at the door of his semi-suburban Oakland HQ.  He was calm and collected but the shop looked like a war had been fought - or a bike had been built with the clock ticking and a deadline marching closer and closer every second which it was.  But the bike was done now and looked great - I'm sure you have seen many luscious pics of it everywhere by now.  The shots above are probably the first ones taken of it by a stranger since Max had just finished it an hour before we arrived which was cool.  Even cooler was the fact that he was nice enough to contact us and invite us over even though he had just arrived at the end of an exhausting build.  A build that included a time crunch with a very public deadline, a major last minute color change, a marathon final push and even a bad case of the flu.  Having said all that he was full of smiles and good vibes and we were giddy just to be there.  After checking out the shop and all the goodies hanging everywhere we sat down for a few Bohemian's and some story.  I thought it was cool that most of the well known bikes he has built still shared the same stable space standing right next to one another.  You could observe the evolution of his aesthetic from the original 4Q knuck to the new Born Free pan.  It was inspiring to say the least.  A lot has been written about Max and his bikes and I'm not here to report anything super revealing about the guy other then the fact that to us, two strangers passing through his city, he was ultra-gracious enough to give us some of his time and let us take a peek inside his inner sanctum.  A few days later at Born Free we bumped into Max.  He greeted us looking totally rested and all smiles.  He was looking at the other invited builders bikes, clearly as stoked as we were to be witnessing a little history.  I thought to myself our little 2-wheeled sub-culture is alive and well - and in good hands.  Thanks again Max!