In 2001 Marshall Hance and Adam Winton merged mountain biking with BMX riding when they created their first line of Endless Bike Company bike frames, which are now manufactured in West Jefferson, North Carolina at B.R.E.W.

These 25-year-old North Carolina boys had to blow off a lot of college homework, do a lot of riding, and drink plenty of 40-ouncers to design and produce the bike frame that has allowed them to take their BMX jump skills to the trails.

Already dreaming of making a bike frame in high school, Hance said he was tricked by N.C. State University recruiters who wooed him with visions of carbon fiber leading to a degree in textile material science. Once imbedded in his major, he learned plenty about cotton; nothing about carbon fiber. He finished the degree anyway because, as he puts it, “I don’t quit stuff.”

He appeased himself with BMX bikes and worked at a bike shop after classes. He and Winton rode their bikes for six hours every night of the week jumping stair gaps, riding and dropping off walls, and dreaming of the perfect bike. His riding goals hadn’t really changed since his first real mountain bike at the age of 12: how do I go faster and jump bigger?

“BMX helped me ride harder,” Hance says. “Although I kept breaking bikes.”

This caused he and his buddies to dream up logistics for the perfect bike. Graduation loomed in the near future, causing the guys to get serious about their careers.

“None of us wanted to work a day job, and we were getting closer to graduation,” Hance said.

Hence, street rides turned into meetings as the guys gathered behind dumpsters with their 40-ouncers, fantasizing about bigger BMX bikes with gnarlier wheels. They wanted the agility of a small, steel-framed BMX bike, but with details allowing trail riding and better landings from bigger air. Pabst-induced dumpster geometry evolved into the Lifetime: a steel-framed, six-pound, rigid frame with a shorter wheel-base and smaller rear wheel. It takes a long, large-diameter seat post for trail riding. The shorter wheel-base means there’s that much more room to move around in the cockpit, which means quick-handling and technical riding on the trails, street, dirt jumps ,or skate parks.

Hance graduated and started his day job as an experimental composites laboratory manager/engineer. That meant he had access to great computers for the finishing touches of his dream bike. He and Winton found a Florida company to make the bike, and 20 nerve-wracking weeks later (what if the tape measure was wrong?), they were testing their first bikes.

“It felt exactly like it was supposed to,” Hance grinned. “It was ridiculous.”

Hance went directly to Snowshoe, West Virginia to promote the new bikes at a NORBA race. From there he took a week-long tour with Motion Boy videographers from Golden, Colorado, who taped him riding off rock drops in Frederick, Maryland; at the infamous 495 dirt jumps in D.C.; and street riding in New Jersey and Manhattan. Pro riders Anson Wellington and Jeff Lenoski were impressed with his bike. “The pros were all about it,” Hance said. “It’s finally hitting mainstream.”

The letters of appreciation have been filling the mailbox at his office at Pro-Bikes in Asheville, as customers rave to Hance and Winton about their Lifetime bikes.

“Even when we knew it was the bike we wanted, we didn’t know how other people would appreciate it,” Hance said, thrilled with the feedback.

Wanna try one yourself? Check out www.Endlessbikes.com.

Bettina Freese’s best mountain biking skills are her blind passion, her reckless abandon, her love for Highland Gaelic Ale, and her propensity to wear pigtails.