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And… finally I’m home from my trip around the Eastern half of the country. Whew… what a drive… put almost 6000 miles on my new car. Got a day here in Austin and then its off to the Northwest for the big tour down the west coast. After I left NYC I headed down to Vineland, NJ and caught the end of Ed’s Games BMX comp. It was a really cool and awesome scene with a lot of people riding. Ran into a bunch of old friends too.  Drove down to Fayetteville, NC and stopped at this shop Hawley’s too. They were real nice and I the most stoked on the huge red bike on the roof of their store. A few stickers and it would be a Fairdale Parser Express. I continued to stop and bike shops and work in hotel room for the next couple days. I actually really enjoyed seeing all the different bike shops and how they ran things. I took a small break to play with Monty in the Atlantic Ocean north of Jacksonville at Jekyl Island. The water wasn’t very clean but I did find this jellyfish washed up on shore. The Mobile, AL skyline/ sunset was pretty astounding. Not sure if a taken while driving iPhone pic can really do it justice but it was epic. The new Fairdale mobile killed it and the drive was always fun and pleasant… even when I got into some crazy storms around Louisiana. SO much lightening! When I got home I found a new shirt for myself from Flying Coffin. Pretty stoked as it matches Monty pretty well.  

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Take a look at our new bikes. Our full line will be in stock by the end of the month! Weekender  (above) Flyer and Flyer Step-through (above) Coaster (above) Roger (above) Parser BLACK (above) Parser EXPRESS (above)

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Got on the road from Michigan (after Fed Ex brought me a new credit card to replace my stolen one) and started working my way east. I stopped off at Spin Bike Shop in Lakewood, OH. I like that shop a lot so hopefully they will give Fairdale a try. After that had a pretty beautiful drive through the middle of Pennsylvania. I almost moved out here a few times and seeing it so nice and green on my drive made me want to stay longer for sure. Outside of a hotel stop for one night I pretty much just motored on through Pennsylvania. Stopped off on the eastern edge to visit Bethlehem. B-town was looking good! It’s been years since I lived there and it’s changed so much. I really didn’t recognize the place.   Had some lunch with my old friend Price and then visited Kyle who is busy getting ready to open Kurent BMX in downtown Bethlehem. He’s already ordered some Fairdales so we’re all good there! Powered on into NYC and had a blast driving the new Fairdale mobile through all the insanity. At one point I was in a construction zone with a 25MPH speed limit doing 60MPH… the drivers behind me were honking because I was going too SLOW! Nothing to do but shift down and get out of the way in a hurry. Stayed with some friends that have a cool apartment in Cobble Hill right near the water. Great views of Manhattan. Monty was stoked because there was lots of treats and other animals to party with. It worked good for me to because I had a good place to leave him and then wander around the city for the day. I went all over Manhattan and Brooklyn. Rode the subway like 20 times and walked a million miles. I visited as many bike shops as I could just to get a feel for what’s going on with shops over here. I talked with a few appropriate shops about Fairdale too and I think I have some interested in bringing a little bit of Austin to NYC. Today I’m heading to New Jersey for Ed’s Games… should be fun to take in some BMX!  

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Day 2 was a pretty uneventful 7AM to 2AM drive. Shouldn’t really have taken that long but Monty and I stopped a lot. At one point I got bored and just decided to get lost off the highway and wander around some small town on the Illinois-Indiana border. All in all it was one of those very long, but pleasant drives. Day 3 was Memorial day so I spent the day with family here in Michigan. Today was Day 4 and I did some bike shop visiting.   To entertain myself I took pictures of road signs that seemed funny to me. I have to admit that everything seemed a lot funnier when I was partially out of my head from a solid 16 hours of driving. I stopped by Albe’s today. . Albe’s was my very first sponsor. It started with a free T-shirt and a 15% discount 20 years ago. Albe’s has been in business since 1968 and selling BMX exclusively since 1988. Pretty impressive that they were in business before BMX was really even invented! Flip had me sign an old Hoffman “Taj” frame for the wall. If you’re not old enough to remember GT Epoch headsets you probably don’t remember this frame. It was a frame I designed for Hoffman Bikes and was famously littered with different possible things that T-A-J might stand for. Like the one Todd FromAlbe’s made up… Totally Awesome Jumper, and my response, “Todd’s A Jerk”. After Albe’s I stopped by Cycle Therapy. That shop is right by one of the elementary schools I briefly went to in Waterford, MI. Funny to drive through the old neighborhood. The owner Ernie also used to ride BMX with my big cousin who got me started in BMX. In a round about way this shop is very tied to my roots. I also think I got them interested in some Fairdales. Hopefully there will be some cruising around my old neighborhood soon. I stopped by Wheels In Motion in Ann Arbor too.  I was born in Ann Arbor and lived there right before I hit the road for Austin. I tried to play the angle that I was a “local” and so they should pick up Fairdale. I’m not sure that worked but we’ll see. I think Fairdales would be good in Ann Arbor. Last I stopped by Trails Edge in Milford. It was a pretty out of the blue stop but I figured I lived in Milford for a years as a kid too so what the heck. This shop is right by the start of a nice park bike trail, I for sure designed our new Flyer bike around exactly that kind of rider. I also cruised by Waterford Oaks BMX track where I first started racing some 23 years ago. It was closed though. Tomorrow I have to wait around mom’s house a bit for Fed Ex to bring me a new credit card. Somehow my old one’s number ended up being […]

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I’m freestyling a route around the country something like this. Today I loaded up my new car and hit the road to do a loop of the eastern half of the country. I’m going to visit bike shops and show them the new Fairdales we have coming in. Thanks to a late start I only covered around 500 miles and am now holed up in a hotel in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. My plan is to make it to my mom’s house in MIchigan by Monday morning, hang out there for Memorial day and then begin my bike shop visiting trip in earnest. About all I know is that from the Detroit area I’m heading east to NYC. Eventually I’ll follow the coast down and then cut back towards Austin. Today’s drive was pretty uneventful. Sunny and hot weather made it tough to stop for very long or I would risk cooking Monty in the car. So my day was gas and go watching Texas go by the windows. At one point I passed a gas station I had stopped at almost 20 years before under very different circumstances. My Cavalier was silver and even shittier, but you get the idea. After high school my mom gave me her old 1984 Chevy Cavalier. It wasn’t in great shape by the time I started driving it in 1991 and after a few additional years of hard driving BMX trips it was pretty haggard. In fact it was so bad the repair shop refused to put it on the repair lift sighting its massive rust damage and the fact that the frame might break in half. Also, the starter had gone so it had to be jump started every time I wanted to drive it. AND, the radiator was shot so it would overheat if you got stuck in traffic and had to idle. Despite all this James Shepherd and I (and I think Rooftop) decided it would be a good idea to drive it 6 hours from Austin to Oklahoma City for a Hoffman B.S. comp. About an hour or so into the drive one of the tires blew. Of course there was no spare and it happened to be Memorial Day weekend like it is today or maybe it was Labor Day… whatever it was, everything was closed. We limped off the highway in the middle of pretty much no where. Amazingly the exit we pulled off on had a open gas station. The guy there sold us some old tire for $15 and helped us get back on the road. Considering none of us had hardly any money that guy really saved our lives. As I drove by that old station today I still felt so much gratitude. Of course it’s no longer the same station it used to be, all wrapped up in corporate siding and signage now with no garage to help stranded drivers. Somehow we made it to the contest in Oklahoma. I really can’t remember which one… I […]

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ESPN wrote a really nice piece about Fairdale and me that I’m very honored by. I guess it sort of chronicles my riding career and leads into the creation of Fairdale. Thanks guys -Taj “Over 25 years ago, a BMXer by the name of Taj Mihelich started a path through BMX that few had ever ventured to explore. A racer in his early years, Mihelich quickly discovered dirt jumping and proceeded to combine his abilities to boost and stretch jump variations with his roots as a racer. By his teens, Mihelich was sponsored by the local BMX shop and traveling to regional contests in the Midwest. Still clutching to his race setup, Mihelich stood out for more than his riding style…”   Read the full story and check out Sandy Carson’s photo gallery shoot of the Roger video here: Fairdale and Roger Create New Bike  

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We’re really pleased to “officially” announce the Fairdale Roger bike. This collector’s edition is only available in super limited quantities. This bike is special to us because we got to build it with our buddies at Roger Skateboards. This special package comes complete with a skateboard. One of our most favorite artists Roger’s Michael Sieben did all the graphics for both the bike and matching board. The skateboard is a real deal Roger Skateboard complete with Indy trucks, Bones bearings and even Sieben designed Bones wheels. The bike is based on our soon to be released Coaster model. It has Fairdale Archer bars, a real Selle Italia handmade Turbo seat, Odyssey grips and pedals. A smooth and simple looking Shimano Coaster brake rear hub gets you moving and stopping, and bullet proof sealed press in bottom bracket with chromo BMX cranks will keep you pedaling. It also comes with the Fairdale cargo rack combined with our Skaterack to carry your skateboard with ease. The Fairdale Roger bike will arrive in shops in the middle of June. The complete board/ bike kit will have a MSRP of around $800. Contact one of our dealers near you to reserve one: -Fairdale Dealers  If your bike/ skate shop wants to order one contact Full Factory Distribution.

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This is by far the largest collection of Fairdale kits every assembled and I’m not even in the picture! Texas summer bike rides requires a thorough group sunscreen coverage session. Here the Full Factory/ OTX office and Sandy Carson prepare for the 85 miler. The Real Ale ride is a group fun ride through Blanco, Texas’ hill country roads. Thousands of people do its different length courses every year and all the routes end at a fun BBQ party at the Real Ale brewery. Routes range from 15-85 miles and there’s a few cutoffs you can chose from along the way if you bite off more distance then you can chew. To make the ride even more fun there are pit stops along the way with food and drinks and Pickle Juice. Sandy, Chris and I charged up to the front of the start to do the 85 mile ride. I saw Chris disappear over the first couple hills with the lead pack and never saw him again… he’s fast! Bobby and Ruthie rented a tandem for the ride which happened to be on their wedding anniversary. Logan borrowed Mutiny Gaz’s extended headtube bike and powered along with the tandem. I wore spandex! I was so embarrassed at first, but screw it, on a hot day it is awesome. Sandy Carson showed up in flip flops and only after suiting up and being ready for the ride did he realize he’d forgotten shoes. In a frantic sweep of the event he found a BMXer who lent him some flat pedals and wore JC’s shoes. I hung with Sandy for a while on the ride which was pretty impressive since he’s in really good shape and rides a lot and I’ve had strep throat for he previous week and never ride road bikes. After about 15 miles of Sandy pedaling in Jim Cielencki’s shoes Jim himself caught us and joined up with us. After not very long JC and Sandy dropped me and I found myself alone in the Texas hill country. The ride had started out with huge groups of people but all of a sudden I was all alone for as far as I could see. It was really quite peaceful and beautiful. Desert-ish hills and valleys stretching off in every direction and so quiet. I’ve discovered that the challenge for me with road riding is the sun. My ginger skin is not tough enough to spend hours in the sun. I was very careful to keep reapplying sunscreen but in the end I still got baked beyond belief. I’m currently working on this Fairdale prototype sun screen roof that mounts to aero bars. I think it could be the future of ginger haired cycling. Or maybe this suit will work for me. I thought the ride was pretty challenging but I also found I was able to just sort of keep going. I caught myself marveling about how amazing bikes are… such simple machines but they allow you […]

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I’ve got a few big rides coming up so I started modifying my Weekender prototype bike to see how flexible a platform it is. This is how it used to look and you can see I added a front derailleur and drop bars (and painted the rims orangey red). My friend Chris gave me some SRAM Red levers so that was pretty awesome. The bike is a true hodge-podge of shifting parts… Apex rear derailleur, Rival front derailleur, MTB rear cog cluster and Red levers. Somehow (Full Factory mechanic Bobby Parker) it all works pretty seamlessly. John from Prolly Is Not Probably gave me some Hold Fast straps for my pedals and they seem pretty cool. Eventually I’m going to have to break down and buy some clicky shoes with those clickly pedals I guess, but for now this is awesome. I got this Thomson stem too, seems pretty sweet. I miss the days when they used to send me stuff for free though as a pro bmxer. Road bike stuff is expensive! Just finished doing the Real Ale ride on the bike and it was a treat. I think it’s ready for the big Seattle to San Francisco ride for Sandy Carson and his Cat Charity in a couple weeks. Not long after that it’s out to Iowa to do the Ragbri ride! Fun Summer!  

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Another interesting application for our single speed Parser frame. This time from Canada. ” I just wanted to say that the bike has been amazing. It went together simply (the built in bearing race on the fork is a great touch that you never find on bikes this style), and it rides wonderfully. I quickly got myself a Velo Orange rack to set up a front rack to haul stuff and it’s changed my usual routines…. I can load up so much more with me when I’m riding and running errands.  I’ve even fulfilled my fantasy of hauling a whole pizza home on it, amongst other things.  With the rack on the fork and geometry of the frame, the whole thing has been nice and stable too.  Most frames I’ve had in the past have tighter geometry, and on medium size frames it leaves me with toe overlap issues. Nothing like that to report with the Fairdale. I couldn’t be happier with it, and get compliments and questions on it all the time. The new stuff you have coming out looks great too and I can’t wait to see where else you take the company.” –Yo Sick Zine

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