If you’ve been into our shop at any point in the last few years you’ve no-doubt had the pleasure of interacting with Gram, our resident consignment manager, style guru, and builder of all things quirky bike. We recently sat down for a little Q&A about one of his more distinctive builds: the MCS “Dominator”.

Q: So what motivated this build?

G: I got the Frame and Fork in 2009, and was enamored by it’s BMX Style, impeccable welds and “Modified Campagnolo Dropouts”.  At the time, fixed gear freestyle bikes and bar-spins were in vogue, I decided I wanted to build my frame into a bike that looked like a rad vintage BMX, had a Campagnolo drivetrain to pay homage to the dropouts, and could do barspins.

Q: What can you tell us about the frame?

G: The frame is a 1986 MCS AT Dominator (it dominates All Terrain, hence the AT) Made in Pompano Beach, Florida.  MCS was (and still is) a force in the BMX racing world, and rumor has it that in the 1980s their factory had so many talented welders that they did the prototyping for most of the bigger manufacturers.  This was their foray into the new sport of “Mountain Biking” that was getting big over on the west coast, and compared to most other brand’s offerings, the Dominator was quite different in it’s geometry.

Q: WTF is up with that drivetrain?

G: Shifters ended up ‘suicide style’ on the seat tube to avoid tangling cables during bar spins, and the brakes were worked out with an ACS Detangler I’d held onto for a while, coupled with a V Brake and travel agent on the front.

Q: Barspins? That explains a lot. There are some other choice parts in the build too.

G: I got some cool Aluminum ‘Mag’ style wheels from Taiwan, raided my weird parts bin stash for american made or cool early MTB/BMX trinkets and found CQP cranks, ACS pedals and stem, weirdo dia-compe brake levers, and Scott SE brakes.  Ebay helped with the acquisition of the MCS Seatpost, and the Campagnolo MTB rear derailleur.

Q: Our compliments about the custom valve caps. What inspired those?

G: I rode the bike across Iowa in Ragbrai, which was pretty fun!  The highlight of that ride was meeting a rider that had done a similar conversion to their top of the line Specialized Tarmac, complete with carbon BMX handlebars and painted to match 5 spoke wheels.