Alan James Vaughn

Alan James Vaughn is an artist, entrepreneur and builder of bicycles, in particular the designer of several bikes that have won major awards and set speed records, and devised biking products that were slated to be used by the Tour de France.

Early life

Alan Vaughn, an AriZona Artist was born at Eglin AFB, Florida to Forrest Edward and Velma Lorene Vaughn in 1959. He was the third child in a family with four children. He has an older sister Cynthia Kay, born in 1947, and older brother, Forrest Edward II born in 1953 and a younger sister Sharon Gay born in 1963. By 1965, he had started painting Chopper Motorcycles on illustration boards using Testors model paint. With painting limiting his creativity, he started building chopper-style bicycles by adding longer forks from salvaged bicycles found at the local dump in Florida. This continued for several years until he started making money mowing lawns and could afford new parts for his bicycle projects.

He took art classes in high school, after moving to El Paso, Texas. The move to El Paso came after the death of his father in 1969. He paid for his education and lifestyle through small projects and art. After leaving the University of Texas at El Paso, he entered the Air Force in 1979, where he remained for several years, working with the aerospace industry.

Career

In 1987, Alan became the Director of Operations for National Off-Road Bicycle Association. (NORBA). With Mountain Bikes becoming popular, his fixation on bikes begins to turn into a paying career. In 1988 Alan started Sun Eagle Bicycles and started producing custom off-road trailers. Shortly thereafter, he changed the name of the company to Talon Cycles and started designing and hand building custom off-road frames. The 3rd design he came up with was slated for testing in Mountain Bike Action.

In 1989, Alan built a low weight/high strength bicycle trailer that is no wider than a pair of mountain bike handle bars. This design is used by Ronald and Sandra Slaughter in setting the US record for tandem bicycling, having traveled 18,077.5 miles around the world from December 30, 1989 to July 28, 1991 as listed in the Guinness World Records book. Spurred by this early success, Alan refines his design, and comes up with a radical bicycle that Michael Secrest( Previous Winner of The Race Across America) used to set a New Guinness World Records for a Paced Distance of 1256.8 miles in 24 hours at Phoenix International Raceway on April 26 - 27, 1990. It uses a negative racked front fork, elevated right chainstay and a 92 tooth front chain ring.

Later career

Beginning in 1994, Alan took Talon Cycles in a different direction. Using the knowledge gained from working in the aerospace industry, he developed a system to Teflon coat bicycle cables to reduce friction and wear. These were branded as "Slick Whips" and became a near standard product. Some of these are used in the bikes on the Tour de France.

As of 2000, Alan Vaughn devoted most of his spare time to Art, including Stippling, Acrylics, Watercolor, Air Brushed works and Mixed Media, Disc Golf and Electronic Dance Music. He is a member of the Arizona Artist Guild, Mesa Art League, Professional Disc Golf Association and the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame & Museum. His Art works encompass, Landscapes in Stippling and Water Color, Sci-Fi pieces, Acrylic Abstracts and Portraits, Metal Mirror Sculptures and whatever may pop into his mind as a challenging opportunity.

External Links

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stippling Stippling Examples Wikipedia] Stippling Wikipedia
* [http://www.artsig.com/go/users/view?id=3761 Alan Artsig Page] Alan J Vaughn, Artist, Stippling, Acrylics, See ALL WORKS
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_James_Vaughn Alan's Wiki Page] Alan J Vaughn , Wikipedia Page
* [http://www.phoenixartspace.com/members/867 Alan at Phoenix Art Space] Alan J Vaughn, Phoenix Art Space