pulled this off quad cities radio show i think it is! moliterno interview: march 19 08
DAVENPORT -- He held the finished bike frame, examining every angle and weld.
"It looks great," Rick Moliterno, Standard Byke Co. owner and BMX legend, said.
The 125R racing bike frame, ridden all over the world, was the first to be manufactured in Davenport.
It's been Mr. Moliterno's dream for years, and after some planning and support from other locals, he brought production of the Davenport-designed bikes home from Wisconsin.
Bringing Standard fully to Davenport means the company gets a more accurate inventory count and lower costs, and riders get better customer service and flexibility in design when they need it.
"We'll let kids come in and watch their bike being built," Mr. Moliterno said. "We have a reputation of super-high quality, and we plan to carry on with it."
Quality was the reason Standard was founded.
In 1992, Mr. Moliterno began Standard because he and other pro BMX riders were breaking four or more bikes a month. They were progressing quickly in the sport, but equipment wasn't keeping up.
Without an engineering degree amongst them, but with decades spent on bikes, Mr. Moliterno and his friends changed the frame's geometry, resulting in an overall stronger frame.
Mr. Moliterno's professional accolades include more than 37 years as a BMX rider, 26 of those as a pro. Besides Standard, his local business ventures include a skateboard and bike shop, Goodtimes Superstore, and the former Rampage Skate Park -- the longest running skate park in the world. It closed in 2005.
Living the life of a pro BMX rider, Mr. Moliterno could have lived anywhere. He chose the place where he was born, raised and fell in love with biking -- Davenport.
Now, inside a white and green brick building across 4th Street from the Col Ballroom, it's hard to tell that what's going on inside will affect bikers worldwide. It blends into the manufacturing section of downtown Davenport.
True Standard fans would recognize the wooden Cobra sculpture in the front window. The snake is one of Standard's trademark logos.
It's where Mr. Moliterno hopes "skilled shop rockers" Rob Southwick and Roger Hines can crank out 2,000 frames this year and up to 5,000 by next year.
"Right now, it's one every six months," Mr. Moliterno said with a laugh.
There are two full-time and two part-time employees at the shop now, but Mr. Moliterno hopes to create 10 more full-time jobs for other skilled workers by the end of the year.
"We're going to do a lot of stuff, but our main concern will be BMX," he said.
Inside the shop are pipe benders for handlebars, a CNC mill for an array of aluminum parts, and other machines. They're all things Mr. Moliterno learned about along the way.
"I had no idea about this stuff. I only saw the finished product," he said. "All I said was, `OK, what do we need?'"
Getting to this point took a lot of planning and a bunch of people behind it.
One day, Mr. Moliterno told Chad Pregracke, of Living Lands and Waters, also a skateboarder, his aspirations for the new shop. That connected him to Shelly Sheehy, who pushes hard to increase businesses in west-central Davenport. She put him in touch with Chad Stamper at the New Ventures Center in Davenport and Liz Tallman-Murry with the city of Davenport.
With their help, aid from the the Iowa Department of Economic Development and a loan from Wells Fargo Bank, Standard became all Davenport.
Mr. Moliterno enlisted Seaberry Industries of Rock Island to laser cut a part that holds the rear wheel on -- including a cut-out of the Standard logo. TMT Manufacturing Co. of Mount Joy works on parts for the crank and fork.
Mr. Moliterno tells kids at Goodtimes and the skate park that if they learn the trade, they can make a living building the bikes
they're riding. "We definitely want the local kids to come in and help out," he said.
Going on two years without a place of his own to build ramps is something Mr. Moliterno hopes to end. He plans to build ramps to snake through the Standard shop, so riders can cruise room-to-room testing out bikes being built around them.
With professional riding, a skate and bike shop, and now not just running the design and sales of bikes, but also the production, Mr. Moliterno has a full plate. But he's also got plans. He wants to build a new Rampage skate park.
"I'm going to try to put together a crazy, big pro setup once I'm done with this," he said. "When that's going to happen, I don't know."
heres some pics of the first r125 to be made at the new factory in davenport: march 12 08
