Reinventing the wheels

When bicycle aficionados drop thousands of dollars on a new ride, usually it's a gleaming, specialized affair -- a featherweight racer like Lance Armstrong's, or something burly and fat-tired for careering down mountains.

Mike Flanigan used to make such bikes, but four years ago he struck out on his own and started Alternative Needs Transportation, or ANT, in Holliston, where the bikes are built not for flash but for everyday use.

``The bulk of the people that buy my bikes are experienced cyclists that have a lot of different bikes," Flanigan said, ``and I am the custom bike that actually gets ridden and locked up at the store, whereas the other bikes don't."

Flanigan's bikes are used for things like running errands and daily commuting, but they can range in price from $2,600 for a typical model to $6,000.

The most popular color is an unobtrusive black. Working alone, he hand crafts about one a week in a small machine shop.

Dedicated bikers often have a dilapidated clunker that they use for such purposes.Why spend the money on one of Flanigan's? Because it's built to their exact specifications.

``It's like getting fitted for a good suit," he said. ``You can go to a department store and buy a suit that'll work just fine. Or you can get a custom-fitted suit, and it'll feel great."

Once he has a person's measurements, Flanigan cuts and welds the frame tubes together and installs the components and, for most customers, cargo-carrying racks and baskets.

All of his 12 models are made of steel -- no carbon fiber or titanium here. The price tags on the bikes can get serious if customers add on various extras -- the highest-quality Japanese fenders, say, or the very best German-made ``dyno" front hub for powering a headlight.

``Yes, they cost a lot. But if you value individual craftsmanship, particularly American, and you value bicycle commuting, there are worse ways to spoil yourself," said 54-year-old Jack Fallon of Milford, N.H., who met with Flanigan before ordering a Light Roadster with upright, swept-back handlebars for comfort.

``I probably look like Old Lady Gulch from `The Wizard of Oz,' " Fallon said, referring to Dorothy's mean neighbor in the classic movie, ``but the bike rides like a dream."

For 44-year-old Rich Grenier of Gloucester, being present before and at the birth of his bike was part of the appeal. ``I actually got to hold the tubes before the frame was welded," said Grenier, an owner of two ANTs whose orders involved some out-of-the-ordinary requests.

``He just did special things, things that you can't get anywhere unless you go to a builder, and even some builders won't touch that. They just build the bike and send it to you."

Which is just how Flanigan wants it. A bike tinkerer as a child, the 41-year-old Texas native worked in bike shops starting in his late teens, spent a couple of years building F-16 fighter jets, then took some time off for a cross-country bike trip in 1989, making connections en route that landed him a job at the now-defunct shop, Fat City Cycles in Somerville.

When that company was sold and moved to New York S tate in 1994, he and other Fat City veterans stayed behind to start Independent Fabrication, which, like Fat City, specializes in the fast and cutting-edge.

But even that small company was still too large, so in 2002 he moved on to his present operation, where he has the freedom to experiment on things like a wood bike (not for sale, he says) and the ``Frontaloadontome," a cargo carrier that is used most notably as a delivery vehicle by Redbones Barbecue in Somerville, a longtime favorite of Boston bike industry people.

While there are other custom bike makers who cater to racers or mountain bikers who are pushing their bikes to extremes, Flanigan has found a comfortable niche producing the biking enthusiast's ``other bike."

There are about 75 to 100 small bike builders like Flanigan in America, said Don Walker , also a solo frame builder as well as the founder of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, an annual event that Flanigan attended in March.

``Most of the small companies are one-man shops, and they can usually do one a week. And, for the most part, everybody's happy doing one a week," Walker said.

As for whether he wants to break out of that category, and build ANT into the next big thing -- building hundreds of bikes a year like Independent Fabrication, rather than a few dozen -- Flanigan shakes his head and says no, a smile turning up the edges of his handlebar mustache.

``I never intend to grow. I'm through with the growth-style business plan, because once you take on an employee, you have to do three times as much work to pay for them.

``It's much better working by myself. I can do what I want to do, and what's been really nice is that I can create things and people like it. That's a good spot to be in."