Richard Sachs Cycles

[CJones]

Just curious... why have you not removed the warning sticker from your crankset?

[e-RICHIE]

Just curious... why have you not removed the warning sticker from your crankset?

It's kinda' like the rest of the bicycle. I haven't touched a single thing on it (no adjustments, no tightening/retightening, no replacing anything) since assembled. I haven't lubed or cleaned it either. This, going back to February iirc.

[CJones]

It's kinda' like the rest of the bicycle. I haven't touched a single thing on it (no adjustments, no tightening/retightening, no replacing anything) since assembled. I haven't lubed or cleaned it either. This, going back to February iirc.

Interesting! I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Paul Price (of Paul Components) purposely does not wash or maintain his fleet of bikes so he can see what happens to his components when they are treated that way.

[e-RICHIE]

Before my four hours on Sunday.

I rarely know which direction I’ll turn when I hit the driveway, much less the destination. I just go, but with an abstract idea of for how long rather than how far.

Today I moseyed over to the other side of Guilford, almost to Stony Creek. On the way back I took my customary jaunt to the end of Whitfield Street to pause.

The shoreline is beautiful. I never take it for granted. For a Jersey kid, it ain’t the Atlantic or, more specifically, Belmar. But it’s coastline, and it always delivers.

On the return I found Neck Road in Madison, a turn I’ve never taken. As I was exploring it I wondered why. One stretch is more beautiful than the next. I’ll be back.

This is me. It’s what contentment looks like in 2020. Riding just to ride. Simply to ride. No intervals. No goals. No finish lines. And no safety pin holes in my kit.

All This By Hand

[Bingissimo]

leaf stuck in rear brake
makes such an annoying sound
cycling in autumn

All This By Hand

Ooh, let me try.

Grime crusted bar tape
Filthy drivetrain
Tatty sticker

Imperfection is Perfection.

[e-RICHIE]

There’s one line to gas and another to oxygen. And two worn out knobs on the side. The tips I use are older than some of the riders on RSCX. Come to think of it, everything on my torch is.

I never really learned how to braze. Or was shown. I stood there for months, many of them, watching Barry, Jim, and Charles turn on their torches and simply get to work. I stared a lot.

By way of osmosis I began to notice things. Their body movements. Where the starts and stops were. The time taken. I watched as men juggled heat, metal, filler materials, and expectations.

Joining a pile of parts to create a bicycle frame is technique. It’s a process that’s never the same twice. I’ve certainly never been able to duplicate anything. But the goal is to get (to the) there.

The there is a place that doesn’t exist. It’s a line that moves. A sound you can hear once, but never again. It’s a shape you might carve easily and then wonder how your tool lost its edge.

First you have to want it. Then go to a place that has it. But they don’t give it to you. You steal it. And when the intensity you spend a lifetime chasing starts to dull, you begin again.

All This By Hand

[Peter Polack]

Before my four hours on Sunday.

I rarely know which direction I’ll turn when I hit the driveway, much less the destination. I just go, but with an abstract idea of for how long rather than how far.

Today I moseyed over to the other side of Guilford, almost to Stony Creek. On the way back I took my customary jaunt to the end of Whitfield Street to pause.

The shoreline is beautiful. I never take it for granted. For a Jersey kid, it ain’t the Atlantic or, more specifically, Belmar. But it’s coastline, and it always delivers.

On the return I found Neck Road in Madison, a turn I’ve never taken. As I was exploring it I wondered why. One stretch is more beautiful than the next. I’ll be back.

This is me. It’s what contentment looks like in 2020. Riding just to ride. Simply to ride. No intervals. No goals. No finish lines. And no safety pin holes in my kit.

All This By Hand

Somebody give that man a set of weights for Hanukkuh!

[Ras72]

Jedi Master stuff right there. With the tool to prove it.

[Diablo de Acero]

No truer words ever spoken! Save preciousness for the after hours. Opps! I just realized that I am responding to Rick's tag line.

[Mark Walberg]

There’s one line to gas and another to oxygen. And two worn out knobs on the side. The tips I use are older than some of the riders on RSCX. Come to think of it, everything on my torch is.

I never really learned how to braze. Or was shown. I stood there for months, many of them, watching Barry, Jim, and Charles turn on their torches and simply get to work. I stared a lot.

By way of osmosis I began to notice things. Their body movements. Where the starts and stops were. The time taken. I watched as men juggled heat, metal, filler materials, and expectations.

Joining a pile of parts to create a bicycle frame is technique. It’s a process that’s never the same twice. I’ve certainly never been able to duplicate anything. But the goal is to get (to the) there.

The there is a place that doesn’t exist. It’s a line that moves. A sound you can hear once, but never again. It’s a shape you might carve easily and then wonder how your tool lost its edge.

First you have to want it. Then go to a place that has it. But they don’t give it to you. You steal it. And when the intensity you spend a lifetime chasing starts to dull, you begin again.

All This By Hand

So. Richard, I learned how to braze from you - and from 10 minutes from the guy at the local welding shop. i learned from you that it was possible to make a living building bike frames, from those ads in Competitive Cycling and Velonews and BikeWorld, or where ever you put them. I knew from those ads that it was possible. One could do this.
You and those Italians, who were already doing it then.

I taught myself, starting with the 10 minutes of instruction from the guy at the welding shop (Hey, you guys should see what this schmo wants to do. (I still have the lug he brazed to a tube.)).

Richard, you were an inspiration even back then in the 1970s, when you least suspected it.

[e-RICHIE]

I spend a lot of time wondering. And without an attention span it’s no easy task taking a thought to its exponential end. I try. And convince myself I have when I haven’t. Faking it is in my blood. Not by intention. It’s a survival mechanism.

I’ve pondered away at least half my life (so far.) The work that needs to get done, does. But around and through it I daydream and fantasize. I project. And whatever bubble I’m in at a given time is the construct designed to keep me in a safe space.

If I’m pulled from my self-absorption, it gets awkward. When it’s not about me, I just nod. I’m an adult with a body of work to be proud of. If I’m not immersed, reading from my own script, I’m lost. Sometimes I makes bicycles. I always make believe.

All This By Hand

[Wisco]

Digging through some boxes of bike stuff and found a hand written letter from Richard in response to my inquiry (late 1990's?), along with a photocopy from Bicycle Guide describing his frames.

I should have placed an order then, but alas I never did and sadly probably can't place an order now. I can thank Richard however for introducing me to Chris Kvale, from whom I have owned two frames. The circle is unbroken.

Sachs by shenoi, on Flickr

Sachs by shenoi, on Flickr

[e-RICHIE]

I don’t remember feeling anything but alone, and different. Forget the crooked lines that connect some of my dots. We all have these. It’s inside that I wonder what normal is. Is it the ability to filter out friction, and anything I disagree with?

I take strength from the pals I know, or knew. Alliances are a moving target. Circumstances change. Environments too. There’s a flow to relationships. I haven’t figured it out. How can I know others when I’m busy trying to know myself?

The holidays do this to me. More so as an adult. I’ve spent a lifetime wondering if I should accept normal, or just create my own. A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. That’s the path I walk in a single lyric.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

This is my bicycle. It hasn't moved an inch in six weeks. But I have. I'm walking again. Most days for two hours. The tracks are down the street. I leave the driveway, make a right turn onto the rails, and head south. In less than ten minutes I'm in the woods.

Whatever I get from riding I also get from walking. The pace isn't important. The decision to get up and go is. On wheels or by foot, I'm easily transformed out of a routine and into a place where I have a moment to ponder. I'll put the day under a lens. Or, I won't.

Like the rides, some walks are exercise, some are therapy. They give me the tools I use to tighten some thoughts, or disassemble others. I can talk to myself or just rearrange an idea. Or rethink an opinion. Getting away from myself also brings me closer to myself.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

there are days when the only thing right is how much actual wrong i remove before nothing is left. the days when sideways should be a movie but not about wine but about these days. these days of making when steel and precision fixtures and hand tools laugh out loud. in a language that doesn't need google translate.

i get it. the metal doesn't wanna be what i have in mind. and then i live in that time window when i scrape away the wrong, and the wrong before it. so much wrong. and make a decision about how many letters from my name to paste on this thing before wrapping it up. there are twelve. maybe i’ll use seven. or none.

All This By Hand