Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Le.
Mike, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started everything as a hobby, during college I would spend most of my summers and holidays restoring motorcycles out of my parent’s garage. However, when it comes to riding motorcycles, I was on a motorcycle before I was even a teen at 11. Throughout my teenage years, my older brothers would have Sportbikes and I would occasionally ride them.
Now fast forward to college, I was attending the University of Houston majoring in Biotechnology. I was your basic live-at-home commuter and 80% of the time, I was commuting on my motorcycle. As stated before, time off of school I was either at the local gym or in the garage. Luckily, another hobby of mine is photography, and I’ll tell you how eventually things merged and a business was born.
Back to the bike building, I bought a 1971 Honda CB500 that was in pieces, and I had a vision for it, but all of the things that I wanted to do, no company made parts for, so it was up to me to just make the parts myself, easier said than done right? I was working as a personal trainer and waiting tables at a sushi restaurant, so the income that I made with my two jobs I spent on machines and tools to make my vision possible. I had to teach myself how to use them on top of spending all my money to attain them. So school, work, and teaching myself skills that I was curious in was quite a load now that I think about it.
So we fast forward to the social media era, I had an Instagram, like 90% of people my age, at the time though it was just to keep in contact with friends and browse. Eventually, I started posting my motorcycle work for fun and luckily, as mentioned before, I’m pretty handy with a DSLR camera, so my shots definitely had some flare to them, along with the parts that I was designing. I documented a lot of my work and it caught traction by a lot of enthusiasts in the community. People started inquiring on my parts and at the time it was just me making them for myself, but eventually the same inquiries became repetitive and it just one day “clicked”, as in, well I made these parts for myself, BUT…if you want the same thing, I can make you the goods for XXX amount of dollars. Next thing you know I’m being reached out to by global brands like GoPro, Bodaskins, X-Games, and even sold my personal Harley Davidson to Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead and worked with many other people who society would deem as “notable” who admired the things that I design.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Honestly I would say yes, only because I had 3-4 “side” things going on for me during my college years, it was either work in the field that I’m majoring in, continue working in the fitness industry, focus on my media work (photography and video), or take this motorcycle designing stuff to the next level.
I told myself, whichever one takes off first, I’m going to run with it, now I’m here. That’s the quick summary of it, now if you want to know about the overall efforts it took to manage all that, it was tough, I didn’t go out much, you would never see me at your local pub or even social events often. With all that, my home life wasn’t very stable, I didn’t grow up a typical white-collar working family living in the suburbs with a white picket fence, I have 10 siblings, I’m the 11th (youngest) and in hindsight I believe growing up in a tough environment where if I didn’t go out and worked for what I wanted, I wouldn’t have ever got it because I would feel guilty asking my parents for things that I need/want. Because I put them first, I never wanted to be that child that gave them any problems, so yes things were hard at times but that’s really a relative question because my struggles are probably nothing compared to some. So even though I consider myself 100% self-made, I don’t sit on a high horse because again, it’s all relative.
So overall, the struggles if I had to tell you something relating to motorcycle design, was taking that risk to buy all this expensive equipment as a college student, and if I didn’t teach myself how to use them, it was going to be a bust.
Kinetic Motorcycles – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
So Kinetic Motorcycles is more of a designer brand than most companies, parts have been shipped literally all over the world, every continent. I would make a list but its honestly pretty hefty, I like to think of myself as a well-traveled person and there’s places I’ve shipped to that I never even heard of like New Caledonia, Canary Islands, etc.
The company is known for handmade exhaust systems for Harley Davidsons and parts. My designs are known to be simple and dramatic at the same time, hard to explain…? I like to think of my designs like how Porsche designs their cars, less is more, and focus on being “timeless”. Exhaust systems are aggressive yet elegant, parts are the same, and what I’m proud of is being able to be original, countless times I’ve seen my designs replicated and I used to get so worked up about it. Now I look at it like a compliment, if people have to copy things that I come up with, then they probably would never come up with things that I simply forget about. So I’m just ten steps ahead, and I have to think this way to survive, there’s my confidence has gotten me far, so I don’t doubt myself much.
I’m also proud to be the first company that makes production quality 3d printed parts, take it from me right now that the future you will see more of it. Luckily I’ve stapled my name next to that concept, so just watch out! haha. So as of right now, what sets me apart is the designs and the manufacturing methods.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I feel like this is a 2 part question because a good career should lead to a good life, so life-wise: Being able to live in comfort, if you would have asked me where I see myself when I was 18 to where I’m at now, I would have a generic answer, like finish college, hopefully have a stable career, and eventually buy a house. I’ve gotten all those things at a much faster pace then I even imagined for myself, and much more. So just being able to financially live well and help the ones close to me is what makes me happy and proud.
Work-wise: The proudest moment isn’t exactly a moment, but just the skills I’ve taught myself over time, knowing that I was able to teach myself whatever I wanted as long as I was willing to stay up all night to do so. Which would be things like 3d design and printing (CAD), TIG welding, metal fabrication, CNC machining, photography, and more. What’s more exciting is that there’s so much more I want to learn.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kineticmotorcycles.com/
- Email: mike@kineticmotorcycles.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kinetic_motorcycles/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KineticMotorcycles/
Image Credit:
Photos by Myself, Fredis Benitez, and The Handbuilt Show, and GoPro
Suggest a story: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
