Frame builder boom

[crumpton]

I think the ongoing question is how a new framebuilder is going to get started?

if you can't do what these cats did(kirk and the likes), you do it yourself. you toil at the bench on evenings and weekends for 10 years before positioning yourself. it helps if you had a 10 prior years in hard core bike shops to help you along. this is what i did and i did it without the benefit of the internet, nahbs or a boom. i knew i was gonna build 10 years before i ever touched a raw tube.

[Shinomaster]

i suspect your mom would plotz. parents hang on to the paperweights ... i've gone so far as to knock high school artifacts off desks in hopes of them finding the circular file ... no dice she still keeps the crap. if you want to continue getting culinary advice, i recommend leaving the relics alone.

My mom has hundreds of these relics. Free pick up in West Roxbury! Anyone?

[maunahaole]

My mom has hundreds of these relics. Free pick up in West Roxbury! Anyone?

I'm in Boston in two weeks. I may get my Shino sake set yet.:D

[swoop]

I suspect this topic is the talk of town in custom chopper circles. There, safety really is an issue.

you know... its no less a safety issue on the pedal bike. it meets the functional threshold for being the primary issue.
really.

[davids]

My mom has hundreds of these relics. Free pick up in West Roxbury! Anyone?

Have her leave them on Washington Street. I'll run them over - I mean run over - and pick them up in the morning.

[Shinomaster]

Have her leave them on Washington Street. I'll run them over - I mean run over - and pick them up in the morning.

I'll be there in a couple of weeks....

[Dave Kirk]

if you can't do what these cats did(kirk and the likes), you do it yourself. you toil at the bench on evenings and weekends for 10 years before positioning yourself. it helps if you had a 10 prior years in hard core bike shops to help you along. this is what i did and i did it without the benefit of the internet, nahbs or a boom. i knew i was gonna build 10 years before i ever touched a raw tube.

Eggsactly. Thank you.



One last thought on this. There is lots of talk about how tough it is for the new guys to learn the craft of traditional lugged steel framebuilding because the big guys (Treks) and the medium guys (Serottas) no longer build this type of ride and no longer provide the opportunity for an employee to learn the skills.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Treks and Serottas of the world stopped building traditional lugged frames because there wasn't enough market demand to justify the continued production of them? Don't you think that they'd still do it if the phone was ringing off the hook for more lugged bikes? Doesn't this make you wonder who all the new guys are going to be building lugged bikes for? Where is the market demand?

I've heard it said that the long waits that some builders have proves there is pent up demand for lugged bikes and that the new guys are here to satisfy the demand. I feel this is misguided at best. I think that there is a pent up demand for a Sachs built by Richard (which happens to be a lugged bike) as opposed to a pent up demand for lugged bikes in general.

When some of the new guys figure out how to make themselves into a "Sachs" or a "White" or "insert your favorite backed up builder here" then I feel they might have work. Until then it seems to me that they are all fighting for the same small and shrinking piece of the pie.

Dave

[climb01742]

Eggsactly. Thank you.



One last thought on this. There is lots of talk about how tough it is for the new guys to learn the craft of traditional lugged steel framebuilding because the big guys (Treks) and the medium guys (Serottas) no longer build this type of ride and no longer provide the opportunity for an employee to learn the skills.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Treks and Serottas of the world stopped building traditional lugged frames because there wasn't enough market demand to justify the continued production of them? Don't you think that they'd still do it if the phone was ringing off the hook for more lugged bikes? Doesn't this make you wonder who all the new guys are going to be building lugged bikes for? Where is the market demand?

I've heard it said that the long waits that some builders have proves there is pent up demand for lugged bikes and that the new guys are here to satisfy the demand. I feel this is misguided at best. I think that there is a pent up demand for a Sachs built by Richard (which happens to be a lugged bike) as opposed to a pent up demand for lugged bikes in general.

When some of the new guys figure out how to make themselves into a "Sachs" or a "White" or "insert your favorite backed up builder here" then I feel they might have work. Until then it seems to me that they are all fighting for the same small and shrinking piece of the pie.

Dave

oh yes. product differentiation. same as it ever was.

[rphetteplace]

Eggsactly. Thank you.



One last thought on this. There is lots of talk about how tough it is for the new guys to learn the craft of traditional lugged steel framebuilding because the big guys (Treks) and the medium guys (Serottas) no longer build this type of ride and no longer provide the opportunity for an employee to learn the skills.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Treks and Serottas of the world stopped building traditional lugged frames because there wasn't enough market demand to justify the continued production of them? Don't you think that they'd still do it if the phone was ringing off the hook for more lugged bikes? Doesn't this make you wonder who all the new guys are going to be building lugged bikes for? Where is the market demand?

I've heard it said that the long waits that some builders have proves there is pent up demand for lugged bikes and that the new guys are here to satisfy the demand. I feel this is misguided at best. I think that there is a pent up demand for a Sachs built by Richard (which happens to be a lugged bike) as opposed to a pent up demand for lugged bikes in general.

When some of the new guys figure out how to make themselves into a "Sachs" or a "White" or "insert your favorite backed up builder here" then I feel they might have work. Until then it seems to me that they are all fighting for the same small and shrinking piece of the pie.

Dave

Why couldn't someone go to work at Waterford and learn the craft? Ooooh yeah never mind bad idea.

[jerk]

i'm slightly to the left of joseph stalin, whack off to theodore adorno and believe rosa luxemburg makes vanessa paradis* look like a sexually undesirable leper; so while i agree with the starry eyed sentiments that suspect device is promoting; i've still got to call bullshit on his candy ass and slap him with my strong pimp hand.

the bicycle industry is a niche. it's fucking tiny. trek is the largest domestic builder of bicycles and they've got 1200 employees worldwide if they're lucky and might have 70 million dollars in sales this year. that is nothing. suffice it to say, dick burke was as much a visionary as anyone and saw the value in a bike company being a manufacturer first and a brand second, and john and the guys in waterloo continue to stress how important this is to trek, to the industry and to bike shops and their customers.

i value personal relationships and we're good to companies here that are good to us and good to our sport and our culture. bike companies are generally the good guys even the big ones. the good ones don't answer to share holders and at some level are in it because they are into bikes. please do not confuse bike companies with general electric. one brings good things to life; the other makes your daughter dance at the golden banana because dad got layed off at the lynn massachusetts engine plant.

jerk


*and i love vanessa paradis...and had the most game in my life when i met here in a paris hotel bar; but got too wasted on cognac. true story.

[GrantM]

i'm slightly to the left of joseph stalin, whack off to theodore adorno and believe rosa luxemburg makes vanessa paradis* look like a sexually undesirable leper; so while i agree with the starry eyed sentiments that suspect device is promoting; i've still got to call bullshit on his candy ass and slap him with my strong pimp hand.

the bicycle industry is a niche. it's fucking tiny. trek is the largest domestic builder of bicycles and they've got 1200 employees worldwide if they're lucky and might have 70 million dollars in sales this year. that is nothing. suffice it to say, dick burke was as much a visionary as anyone and saw the value in a bike company being a manufacturer first and a brand second, and john and the guys in waterloo continue to stress how important this is to trek, to the industry and to bike shops and their customers.

i value personal relationships and we're good to companies here that are good to us and good to our sport and our culture. bike companies are generally the good guys even the big ones. the good ones don't answer to share holders and at some level are in it because they are into bikes. please do not confuse bike companies with general electric. one brings good things to life; the other makes your daughter dance at the golden banana because dad got layed off at the lynn massachusetts engine plant.

jerk


*and i love vanessa paradis...and had the most game in my life when i met here in a paris hotel bar; but got too wasted on cognac. true story.

If I wasn't a Canadian, i'd be the president Jerk's fan club.
Can you guys change the constitution so I can make it official?

[e-RICHIE]

If I wasn't a Canadian, i'd be the president Jerk's fan club.
Can you guys change the constitution so I can make it official?

use my address and it'll be legal atmo.
just let me stay at your PEI cottage 2 weeks each year.

[Catulle]

El Partido del Orgasmo Feroz (POF) endorses Comrade Jerk for President and Philosopher King.

[Brian Smith]

How much difference is there again between starry-eyed and jaded?

[taylorj]

How much difference is there again between starry-eyed and jaded?

It is a very fine line and the jerk skates pretty close sometimes. He's managed to stay starry-eyed in a jaded sort of way in this nutty biz---but he usually ends up sayin what I wish I said.

[e-RICHIE]

It is a very fine line and the jerk skates pretty close sometimes. He's managed to stay starry-eyed in a jaded sort of way in this nutty biz---but he usually ends up sayin what I wish I said.

dave touched on it and i'll throw my 2 cents in atmo. i don't know why folks
get all emo about framebuilding and lugs and all that shitmo. it all had a place,
and that place shrunk in spades the moment industry evolved past the WWII
era of bicycle making. now that there are ways to make quite excellant and
marketable bicycles in high volume arenas, the need to see a f'builder for that
ne plus ultra is far less than it's ever been. i wouldn't start in this climate. i
am not sure what i would do. i'm happy enough to share my resources with
some of the wide-eyed folks, but at the end of the day, how can a new cat
possibly get enough chops to compete against the likes of pinarello or trek
or c'dale atmo? because those are the types of brands that have panache.
if a guy "...loves to create" or wants to keep some imaginary flame burning,
good luck to him. for most, i'd wager the learning curve will never become
a straight line. as dk infered, there's a reason companies changed assembly
methods as well as materials. atmo trying to make a market in handmade
frames, especially using lugs and steel, is not unlike studying latin in high
school; sure it's cool and all, but what are you gonna do with it atmo? this
has been my tact all along. i dance with the girl that brought me, so it all
works well here. but to say it's a career move for some of the FNGs - that's
when i get all conflicted and shit. we're here to help. and many of us have
become mentors on the lists and at neil's board. but there comes a time
when you simply gots to take off the tinted glasses. some will find where
the rocks are are step smoothly across the water, and most won't.

ducking.

[JackB]

dave touched on it and i'll throw my 2 cents in atmo. i don't know why folks
get all emo about framebuilding and lugs and all that shitmo. it all had a place,
and that place shrunk in spades the moment industry evolved past the WWII
era of bicycle making. now that there are ways to make quite excellant and
marketable bicycles in high volume arenas, the need to see a f'builder for that
ne plus ultra is far less than it's ever been. i wouldn't start in this climate. i
am not sure what i would do. i'm happy enough to share my resources with
some of the wide-eyed folks, but at the end of the day, how can a new cat
possibly get enough chops to compete against the likes of pinarello or trek
or c'dale atmo? because those are the types of brands that have panache.
if a guy "...loves to create" or wants to keep some imaginary flame burning,
good luck to him. for most, i'd wager the learning curve will never become
a straight line. as dk infered, there's a reason companies changed assembly
methods as well as materials. atmo trying to make a market in handmade
frames, especially using lugs and steel, is not unlike studying latin in high
school; sure it's cool and all, but what are you gonna do with it atmo? this
has been my tact all along. i dance with the girl that brought me, so it all
works well here. but to say it's a career move for some of the FNGs - that's
when i get all conflicted and shit. we're here to help. and many of us have
become mentors on the lists and at neil's board. but there comes a time
when you simply gots to take off the tinted glasses. some will find where
the rocks are are step smoothly across the water, and most won't.

ducking.

Heavy heavy stuff spoken by the master. Nothing more to say.

[Shinomaster]

I think I just heard a few bubbles burst here in Bubbleville.

[suspectdevice]

just a question born out my inability to read through all the angst atmo -

so, you wanna do to them what they are doing to us?

but these are bicycles, for god's sakes. folks are buying and riding bicycles
atmo. if big corpo is as good at their task as you say, folks are riding bicycles.
we (framebuilders) can't fill that demographic void.

Yes, I don't want to drive Specialized, Trek and Giant out of business, as much as I want to at least make them scared enough to have some serious thoughts about the way they design, manufacture and market products and most importantly make consumers re-think they way the look at the "true price" of a product.

Maybe you, as one dude in Chester can't fill the void, but others can. A frame builder can't. A Manufacturer can. There are a few angry young people in this country, that work in the bike industry, and share a similar vision. And it is thus;

Any former manufacturing town in the Northeastern US could be producing 20,000+ bicycles anually. Within a 10 minute bike ride from my shop (former Stanley Tools factory) are more than one million square feet of vacant industrial buildings. Buildings that make their own hydro-electric power, and are still plumbed for steam. Buildings with 10foot thick walls and Tiffany fixtures for management offices. Those buildings sit dark, while the scrap metal yard causes traffic jams as printing presses, textile equipment and tool-room quality mills and lathes get turned in for their scrap value.

There are skilled pattern makers and machinists sitting around all day in American Legion halls drinking malt liquor and playing Keno.
Those people, and their children and grand children would rather be working, and physically producing. But there are no jobs for people with their skillsets.... Besides making bombs.

Our economy in this country is propped up by Intellectual Property, not hard goods. Our IP laws are in direct opposition to the rest of the world community. As our global corporate political hegemony fades, patent medicine and medicore pop music and movies will no longer keep people employed and producing $$ the way they are now.

The hinterlands of this vast continent are already turning into a cultural dust bowl, boxed in by Chinese goods and controlled by petroleum prices. Even your cheery whitebread exurbs have turned into dumb, unfeeling ticky-tac clone of some madison avenue/pentagon wet dream.

I am too young to die, too old to be hopeful, and too weak to move the world on my own.

Don't just sit back and let it all fizzle away because pinned and lugged construction has become obsolete.

You can not tell me you are not offended when Specialized sells bikes for $7,000 that are made in China? Where does that price come from?

How do they justify their price structure? Why are bikes that are no better to ride, and offensive to look at more expensive than things that are built either Artisanlly or with the concept of efficient production and economy of design in mind?

Is that a good thing for the industry, of the consumers? Does it really help bike shops? Does it help racers? Does it help you, or me?

I know I have my opinion on it....

And with Jerk as my witness, I don't intend to become an apologist for what I see as a broken system. Even well oiled machines, if driven toward a cliff, will fall off.

[Shinomaster]

Good for you man. Someone has to change this effed up country.