A Vanilla bicycle inspires new documentary

marko_muellner.jpg

Marko Muellner
Photo: Marko Muellner

Last Christmas, Marko Muellner’s wife bought him a 10-week course in documentary filmmaking.

Long before that, he was walking down NE Alberta Street when a locked-up bike caught his eye,

“When I started to look more closely I was amazed, it was beautiful, and the details were really really interesting.”

The bike was a Vanilla, handmade in Portland by Sacha White.

“That night I looked up Vanilla online and learned all about Sacha and Vanilla for the first time.”

vanillamovie.jpg

Still from Vanilla Bicycles
documentary.

Once his documentary film class started and it was time to pick a subject for his first project, Muellner remembered that bike.

He called up the man behind Vanilla Bicycles (Sacha White), and the result is a 10 minute film just-released to the public on Muellner’s Buttered Muffin Productions website.

The film includes interviews with Sacha, his framebuilding friend Ira Ryan, and several Vanilla customers. It’s an interesting look into the man behind some of the most sought-after custom bicycle frames in the world.

Muellner says Buttered Muffin is just a hobby for now, but he’s “been bitten by the bug” and is already thinking of his next project.

He wants to make a film about another type of bicycle he loves, the bakfiets.

You can watch the Vanilla Bicycles documentary on Marko’s website.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, contact me via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a paying subscriber.

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Ayleen
17 years ago

GREAT! I hope to see something from Marko for Filmed by Bike 2008 (deadline is March 1).

Mmann
Mmann
17 years ago

Wow. Sacha’s work presented as the art it is – closest I’ll get to a Vanilla for awhile, but definitey feeds the hunger. My own bike is whimpering in the corner from envy. NOW how long will the wait list be???

David Feldman
David Feldman
17 years ago

Good–not enough people knows what goes into a quality cycle frame and more should know about Sacha.

Thomas Ngo
Thomas Ngo
17 years ago

I spotted a couple in matching white Vanilla bikes at Stumptown on Belmont earlier this week. Those are really stunning bikes.

Murray
Murray
17 years ago

Uh, how does one get the documentary to play? Every time I go to the filmmaker’s website nothing happens. Thanks.

Adams Carroll (News Intern)

murray,

scroll down to the movie window. it should just load automatically if you have quicktime.

Richard
Richard
17 years ago

It would appear that the embedded video is no longer available, perhaps he’s gone over his allowed hosting limit. Accessing the .mov directly also fails.

Paul
Paul
17 years ago

The new phenomena of being….

bikeportland-ed

Like slashdotted but with spokes.

Ayleen
17 years ago

Matching Vanillas at Stumptown? That’s so Portland.

TB
TB
16 years ago

I know, it\’s totally Portland!! OMG