About Me

My photo
Back in my hometown of Jonesboro., Arkansas, United States
My name is Dimitri Harris and I have been building frames for over 9 years now. I learned the basics after spending two weeks with Koichi Yamaguchi. He is one of the most interesting people I have ever met and I am thankful to have worked with him. Since then I have just been building one frame after another and learning as much as possible along the way. I build steel fillet-brazed frames that go by the name of MEECH, which is an old nickname that I have had since I was a kid. I build mostly cyclocross frames because I love their versatility however I also do road,single-speed, and mountain bikes as well. Custom frames start around $1400. All the frames are handmade by me here in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I am insured and guarantee all of my work so if you are in the market for a custom steel frame I would be glad to build it for you. I am also building frames from carbon fiber so if you would like to ride a prototype frame give me a shout. Thanks for stopping by. You can email me at meech151@hotmail.com or call (870)897-6703 or visit www.meechcustombicycles.com Thanks.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Wurster's Stem

Just finished a little stem build for Mike Wurster, a buddy of mine I met through a frame build a couple of years ago, and thought I'd show a few pics of it.  Sometimes finding enough stuff to blog about can be difficult so I use what I can.  Talking about a stem build is probably pretty boring stuff but actually building a stem isn't that bad.  I enjoy doing it and they look pretty nice.  I get these components through Paragon Machine Works, top-shelf stuff. 



A little custom engraving by Mark from Mainline Awards here in Mountain Home and I'll be putting some paint on it in a day or two.

This stem should be around long after I'm gone, although I'm hoping to be around another 40-50 years.  You're looking at this stem a little differently now aren't you.  Yeahhhhhh, that's what I thought.  Check back to see it after I dip it in chocolate.  Man, I ate a whole bucket of chocolate ice cream in two nights.  Don't even ask me about the Double Stuff Oreos I made disappear.  I'm just thankful that I'm not addicted to anything illegal, not that one addiction is any better than another.  I should leave now.  chao.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Sandy's Gravel Road Racer with Sauce

Got a few pics of Sandy's frameset with paint right before shipping it out.  This was one of, if not the most complex paint scheme that I've pulled off since I started painting less than two years ago.  There isn't much more here than I normally do except for the accentuated MEECH logo but that was enough.  The price on this scheme just went up.  Lots of ins and outs on this stencil to tape up and/or  off and my eyes were starting to get a little sore after checking and rechecking to make sure it would all come out right.  In the end, I had looked at it so many times that I just said to myself, "Cross your fingers, shoot it, and see."  I did one of those little Hail Mary things that Catholics do where they make a little cross on their chest with their fingers, although I've never really known where to start on my chest so for all I knew I invited Satan for a dinner party.  "Lets see.  Is it left, right, up, and down, or right, down, left, and up?  WTFreak, who cares!"  "Jesus, please make this paint job turn out right so that I can get my customer his frame."  I mean come on, the Spring Classics are already over and the Giro is fixing to start in a couple of weeks.  Why do you think this thing had couplers on it?  Travel.  So anyway, after checking the final coat of paint to make sure nothing got overlooked I started peeling off tape.  I normally work pretty fast at taking it off, however with this one I just got my little stool and sat down and slowly starting taking piece by piece off.  I started with the easiest sections first in order to get a little confidence and momentum building.  I took everything off with no issues all the way down to the logo.  "Alright.  Here we go."  After all the hard work and worrying about getting it right the tape and stencil practically fell off the logos, and when I looked at it all complete and in tack I couldn't even remember peeling the tape off.  "Thank you Jesus!" I've been hanging out with Jesus alot here lately.  It comes and goes. Its seems that he's always there for me but I'm not so sure I'm holding up my end of the deal. Just for the records, I don't have dinner parties, and I don't really believe in Satan.  "So D, if you don't believe in Satan, how do you believe in God?"  Well, I haven't exactly worked that one out yet. "What is this, the Gospel Hour?" I'm actually thinking about writing a training book called, Drafting Behind Jesus.  Its for guys like me that have to ride by themselves all the time.  The idea came to me the other day when I went out for a short ride.  The wind was brutal and as usual I was having to take it on the chin all by myself.  I was thinking how nice it would be to have someone to draft off of. Then I started imagining that Jesus was in front doing a pull and that I was on his wheel.  He had long brown hair and some bright, white, loosely fitting cycling apparel, but he was wearing spandex.  I don't recall if his legs were shaved but I know he wasn't wearing a helmet. I mean come on, if you had been through everything that he's been through would you. He was knocking the wind off of me pretty good but I was still having trouble holding his wheel.  Jesus holds a pretty swift pace and I was getting a bit frustrated with him riding me off his wheel and then coming back for me.  I hate when people do that, but since it was Jesus I bit my tongue and sucked it up.  One thing I hate about drafting behind Jesus is that white, flowy, sheet-like jersey keeps blowing back in my face.  A couple of times I slipped up and said, "Dammit Jesus, tuck it in, you're killing me back here."  Whenever I talked like that he seemed to lift the pace a bit and so I decided to shut my mouth and not suffer any more than I had to. About that time Jesus looked back at me and said, "Suffering! Wuss!"  A couple of times I tried to roll up beside Jesus and see what kind of bike he rides but it always seemed like he could see me coming up on him and he would speed up and put me back in my place.  He does run Campy components though,  I saw his rear brake calipers a couple of times. Don't even think about attacking Jesus, he rides at such a high wattage that you're maxed out just trying to hold his wheel. Just accept the fact that you're gonna finish 2nd.  But hey, at least you get to stand on the podium with the girls.  Ok, ok, nice frame huh?  I'm expecting a call from Peyton Manning here anytime now.  Did you think I was joking about breathing in too many paint fumes in that last post?  

First S & S Coupled frame.  I never paid much attention to them until Sandy asked me to build this frame, but now I think they're pretty cool and I'll build more.  We decided to turn the lugs sideways for a little added stiffness, this is a race bike you know.

I like this photo because it captures a little of almost everything in this frame.  You can look at this one section of the frame and know you're looking at a MEECH.


A new style of carbon chainstay protector.  This is 3 layers of Car-Bone.  Starting with a couple layers of uni-directional, then a 12k checker-board cosmetic layer on top.  "Bullet-proof?"  Don't even think about shooting this chainstay with a bullet, it'll ricochet and shoot your eye out kid.  


"Keep your distance boys, security is in force." Check out Smokey keeping all the crazy folks back away from it.  He's in charge of security here at the headquarters.

This is a different style of photo.  Yeah, it was another one of my angled photographs so I just cropped it down until you couldn't tell. Turns out the frame was straight, its the world thats lop-sided. I've got to go walk Dancin Dizzy and so I'll be back in a little while.  Hang loose, not high.  Check out that stainless steel head badge to match the couplers.  Its in the details I hear.

With the frame having white on it I wanted to try and tie the fork into as well.  The Wound-Up style fork blades didn't give me any sort of line to work off of and so I just added a few stars around the bottom of the fork legs.  I thought it worked out nicely.  Of course now I had to tie some stars into the frame as well and so I added a couple around the rear drops.  You can see them in the photo above.


As I was boxing this thing up for shipment I was really wishing I could've ridden it.  It is one of the more interesting frames that I've built.  I pour heart and soul into each and every frame that I build, but because this is a larger frame, has couplers, and a Wound-Up fork, I would've really liked to see what it rolls like.  I haven't ridden a 60cm frame in a long time. Thats ok, Sandy is gonna give us the lowdown.  He's a pretty avid racer I gathered from talking to him.  I think this thing would look great on the top step of a podium. "Podium, podium girls?"  I may have to start racing again.  Let's see I probably should start training and get a good coach.  I hear Chris Carmichael's prices have dropped considerably. To live and die with LA.



While this frame may appear to be for a Denver Broncos fan the paint scheme actually came from this soft drink called Moxie that is very popular in the Northeast.  Originally Sandy was wanting the logo to be painted like this but I was having trouble getting the white to cover the blue completely and so we went the opposite direction.  I think the blue letters with white outline match the frame better however I'm now in need of the education in order to paint light colored letters with dark outlines.  Is there something simple that I'm overlooking?  If anyone can offer some sound advice I would truly appreciate it. Sandy is a Massachusetts man and so I thought I would throw in my favorite Pixies song just for fun, afterall, this build was very educational.  Thanks Sandy!




MEECH Custom Bicycles
Handmade Machines
from
Mountain Home, Arkansas

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Jam Afana's Team MEECH Road Frame

I finally got some work finished and photographed these last couple of days.  Talk about absentee landlords.  I'm sorry but I just haven't had time to post anything.  I had a couple of paint jobs that I've been trying to get done for quite a while and the weather finally broke a few days ago.  This is my good buddy Jam's, from London, Ontario, road frame.  After the temperatures started getting up around 60 or so outside I just started putting heaters in the shed to get it up to about 70-75 degrees.  I did some painting/priming in the garage but the stuff just goes everywhere.  My garage had about 3 different colors floating around. Tt one point, I wasn't sure if it was real or if I was hallucinating from breathing in so many fumes.  I truly love painting the frames but I'm afraid there is a price to be paid sooner or later.  I'm gonna try and invest in some better protective equipment.  Don't even think you're gonna get by with one of those little things that covers your face for mowing the yard.  The clearcoat will chew through one of those in about 5 minutes.  I've been buying these 3M respirators and they work pretty good, however when I was having to keep the doors closed, in order to keep the heat inside, it was killing me.  Oh well, I think we've finally made it through the cold stuff, you can see green in the background.  Woo Hooo!

Jam told me a long time ago, after seeing one of my black and yellow frames, that when I built him a frame that was what he wanted.  These are Team MEECH colors right here.  Of course you can have your MEECH painted anyway you like, because of course its your's, but if I had to pick one look to go with this is the one I enjoy the most.  Black and yellow Suzooks and Yamahas were always a fave for me growing up. Follow me.

Check out those front fork dropouts.  Louis Maximus "Soul Katt" Jackson, a.k.a. inspector #8675309, making sure everything is as it should be.  "Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to?" How could a song that sucks so bad sound so good?


Those little holes are hard to get paint into.  I'm getting better at it.  Wonder if a syringe would work?








Even Supercross Dizzy wanted to get in on the action.  He's got his leash on so I can get work done without having to worry about chasing him down.  I've tried to let him stay outside with me while I'm working but he always bails off into the bush and I have to go chasing him down so now he's got a 60 foot cable tied to him.  I don't even tie the other end down to anything,  sixty feet of steel cable dragging the ground is enough to make him think he can't go anywhere.  Don't tell him. He hates the thing with a passion but its the best thing for him as he can be outside with me and I can get work done without worrying about him. This frame is just about his size, he has legs like me.  I call him "Supercross Dizzy" because of the way he jumps over all the furniture in the house.  When he jumps on the couch he usually does it from the back side.  Couple of times he overjumped and cased the coffee table.


Here it is Jam.  The weather should be getting about right up north so I'll be shipping this thing out in a few days.

Check back in a couple of days as I have another really nice frame that I just finished up fixing to be shipped.  Thanks for stopping by.  Hasta Luego.

MEECH Custom Bicycles
handmade in 
Mountain Home, Arkansas


Friday, April 11, 2014

Brad Wiggins on Paris-Roubaix

“It’s not like a road race, where you can just sit there all day, stop for a wee, come back, pose for the cameras … all that sort of stuff. It’s like no other race.”
Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/04/news/wiggins-takes-back-seat-sky-rallies-around-boasson-hagen_323846#9tPJP4ovFGho9KcM.99


Quick Step doing the recon thing.

According to Velonews they're running 30c tires in the back and 28s up front.  Wonder what a 20c pumped up to about 130 would feel like?