With a set of instructions printed off from Click Clack Gorilla, a five dollar bike off of Craigslist and her mom’s old bike from high school, senior Kaia Findlay set out to build her own bicycle. “I built it in the spring of sophomore year. It was my tall bike and a lot of people in my neighborhood had them so I thought, I want one of those,” Findlay said.

Despite never having built anything before, she went for it. After following the simpler instructions, she reached a dilemma with the welding of the two bikes together to make her tall bike. For this reason, Findlay ended up at a bike shop called the Grease Pit to get some help. “I went over after school one day and I met a really cool group of people, and one guy who offered to help me weld my bike,” Findlay said. “The guy, Jeremy, explained the physics and mechanics and the science behind each welding step, most of which flew in one ear and out the other as technical mumbo-jumbo, but it was really interesting to hear about [it] in the moment.”

After finishing, Findlay was more than proud. “I painted the finished product bright purple. When I took it out for a test ride I felt strangely high up but also strangely… famous,” Findlay said. She continues to visit the Grease Pit and build bicycles.