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Merle shows us his mettle: A series of Christmas cards showing what ole St Nick does on a Friday ...
WANDER into the Bike Friday Production area at any time (donning your safety glasses of course) and you'll see a human-powered machine of brazers, welders, powdercoaters and assemblers - the 'line' as it's called - manned by lynchpins like Merle Rothweiler.
Merle's one of the sweetest, gentlest guys to wield a red hot oxy-acetylene torch. He even shys away from the regular foosball ruckus in the break room, preferring to sketch the latest motorcycle, wild animal, or more recently, Bike Friday on his mind. He's been drawing, painting and airbrushing cards, comics and portraits all his life, and recently started illustrating for Bike Friday.
The love of things two wheeled, feathered and/or furry comes from his childhood days in Montana where he and his friends dirtbiked, ate and slept (in that order) through the hills and valleys of Great Falls.
"There wasn't any such thing as a mountain bike then," he said, "in fact, I bought the first one in my town, in 1982."
It was a 'real funny looking thing' he reminisces. "A ROSS, with 15 speeds, fat tires, black with gold anodised rims, people said 'what the heck?' It was not cheap - $500, had really wierd geometry, friction shifting ... bikes have come a loooong way since then!"
Probe his past a little more, and you can see he was destined to end up at Bike Friday, home of the original packable performance bicycle: he joined the Marine Corp for 6 years. His one vital possession that he always took with him was his Raleigh 10 speed. "Bikes weren't allowed so I'd take it apart and slide it down beside me in the jeep."
Merle's latest comic quips for Bike Friday
His bike sailed with him to the Marine Corp bases of the South Pacific, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, "where I lived in Kaneohe, a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks ... started teaching myself to sail, went out and got surrounded - my enthusiasm soon ground to a halt."
After he'd had enough 'wargaming' he went to college in Havre, MT ("the coldest place on earth - 10 miles from the Canadian border") graduating with a degree in Metallurgy and Mechanical drawing. His first first job: steel detailing. No, this wasn't designing heirloom hood ornaments for Buick or breastplates for the warriors in Lord of the Rings.
"Totally boring. Involved poring over blueprints trying to calculate how much rebar was needed in a building."
17 years ago he chose Oregon as a place to live - "somewhere between Montana and Hawaii" and loves it. He lives on a farm outside Eugene with pigs and organic apple trees to keep him connected with nature even though he works in steel and yes, oxy-acetylene.
"I've always liked bicycles I got a job in the local store called Bike Barn, where I stayed for 10 years."
Bike Friday has inherited quite a few folks from that distinctive, barn-shaped bicycle store - which has since been sold and reborn in a standard strip mall. Such is progress.
Merle was progressing too: "I eventually got bored taking Taiwanese bikes out of boxes - I wanted a challenge."
At Bike Friday he's learning all the tools of the new trade, including powdercoating.
"In my day it was all spray on coating with toxic fumes - powdercoating is easier to apply, safer, and has a stronger finish. I like progress!"
His recent artistic efforts include a comic strip called Mountain Bike Melvin and Mr Possum. The latter is about a possum who wants to get back to Australia to hang out with his marsupial relatives, where he feels he'll 'get more respect'. Merle's comics touch ruefully on aspects of our auto-centric genericized urban life: "We're gonna have to cross a lot of roads to get downunder" says Mr Possum. "Unless you're trying to get downunder a tire," says Owl, who is also defecting because 'there aren't enough trees.'
Watch this space for more delightful doodles from Merle's magic marker. To purchase artwork from him, email info at bikefriday dot com, marking it Attn: Merle Rothweiler or call 1-800-777-0258.
You might even talk him into airbrushing your favorite two-wheeler - human powered or otherwise ...
A peek behind the swinging door: The Bike Friday Production Line