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Canada Eh....
i admire the moxy... but. dude.Originally Posted by MBudd
12 frames in 4 years? A good pace for a hobby builder...
Obviously you've got a day job, and aren't a full-time pro.
So lets be up front about where on the path you are.
Maybe you should dial back the 'tude a little,
and focus on your business plan. I hope you're still
around when your production number hits a few hundred.
Good luck.
-g
BSA Spokesperson
This reminds me of the eternal catch 22 that I faced when I was 15 and trying to get my first part time job, when I graduated from college and tried to get my first profesisonal job and what I face as a young framebuilder: you need experience to get the job...but you need to get the jobs to get the experience. I was fortunate that the manager of a Record Town gave me a shot; and when I went onto a new PT job I at least had something to put down. When I graduated college in 2004 the market was still strong and many companies were still looking for entry level engineers. I shudder to think about the class that just graduated in May. There are very few openings, and the jobs that are available are for "turn key" engineers that companies don't have to invest large sums of money to train. Most everything requires the standard "5-7 years". How are they ever going to get that experience?
I now face this as a young framebuilder. I donated countless hours to Toby at Hot Tubes and was fortunate enough to earn an internship from him. Zank has built across the hall from me for the last 3 years and teaches me "the way" only he can. Those of us that are new, and have not spent a career at Serotta, IF, Seven, etc, no doubt face a hard road. At the end of the day the quality of your work is what builds the snowball of buzz. You hear a lot of the professional framebuilders voice concern over new builders selling their wares for too little and undermining the sustainability of the industry. As someone who is trying to go about it the right way with insurance, the proper equipment and genuine concern for the outgoing quality it is a delicate balance between selling my frames for what is appropriate and making enough to sustain my business...all the while not overly whoring myself out. You walk the line of "you're selling for way too little" and "what makes you think your frames are as good as Pro X, Y & Z".
Ultimately you have to be patient and plug away.
resident tastemaker
i'd like to think i'm an informed customer. and as an informed customer i have this to say:
a hobbiest is not a builder. i don't care how pretty the bikes. how earnest the attempts. or how intense the passion.
buy bikes from a builder.
the road to hell is paved with good intentions. i support the joy and passion of hobby building. but you can't pay me a million bucks to ride anything from the workshop of a hobby builder.
like all things, anyone can call themselves a builder. but an informed customer knows that there's actually not nearly as many builders out there as you might think. and of the young builders... only a few that have it (and its a young it, so know what you're buying).
listen to e-richie. its legitimate to think of him as not only a builder, but a master. and not to kiss ass... but a lifetime given over to building makes for a point of view that has some weight.
i get why a hobby builder would hate to read this. but one thing has so very little to do with the other. and no amount of good will or desire will change that.
when you think of someone like dario, building a frame and then riding his scooter alongside the team as they trained, watching the guys positions.... and think off all the contract work and designing and tweaking, and of the relationships building and designing for the best of the best riders...
its an insult for a hobbiest to think of himself as a builder just because he makes a bike frame. sometimes you can't get there from here.. or only a very few do. and those few are obvious.
and in the end... its really just part of being an informed consumer.
shrink, terrorist, poet, president of concerned cyclists for the abolishment of bovine source bicycle parts and head of the disaffected commie dishwashers union.
Paceline
You need to read the original note a little more carefully. He built 12 in the first year, and has built 12 this year. Still not an extraordinary pace, but this is probably more than a hobby.
Sounds to me that he has an impressive alternative model to becoming successful--riding, racing, honing, talking, testing. This is another mode of apprenticeship. I'd pay attention to it.
Issimo
Frame Builders
I agree with Swoop, I would not ride a bike from a hobby builder.
I would even say that the list of frames that I would ride from full time veteren framebuilders would be narrowed down to the ones who really understand racing bikes.
You can be really good at construction and not know a thing about how a racing bike should ride, fit or handle. You also might be able to make a presentable looking frame, but not be able to make a straight one to save your life.
Canada Eh....
you're right, i mis-read the wording of his post.
it's not my intention to set this up a 'hobby vs pro' cage death match...
but unless you know the builder personally, it's pretty hard to judge
these guys based on photo samples of some work.
The fact that most websites don't point out that they may have another
day job that pays the bills, and they're not full time frame builders.
Even with that fact, there may be part time talented builders out there,
but excuse us for showing some skepticism. How does a customer really
know what's under the paint? it's virtually impossible to tell on the web,
so without a reputation, and an attitude that displays they don't know
what they don't know.... i'm choosing carefully....
-g
"The Fantastic Mr. David!"
It's a unique interpretation, but I don't think e-RICHIE is scared of the competition.
His argument has merit, and raises an excellent question - What kind of experience minimally qualifies someone to build a bicycle frame?
GO!
Sock Doping
In answer to the original question, I would take the members of the current Framebuilders Collective, remove anyone with a wait list more than a year, add Kelly Bedford, Spectrum, Hampsten, Ellis Cycles and DeSalvo. I think this would yield the following list.
David Kirk
Carl Strong
Ellis
Bedford
Spectrum
Crumpton
Hampsten
DeSalvo
If you want carbon go with:
Crumpton
If you want titanium go with:
Spectrum
Carl Strong
Hampsten
For Steel:
Now decide whether lugs speak to you or not, if so go with:
David Kirk
Ellis
Bedford
Spectrum
Hampsten
If tig welding is your thing:
Strong
DeSalvo
Use price and lead time to further winnow the field.
Slide to the back
My personal take
Not that any more opinions will help clear this up but what the hell.
I can only speak for myself on this and how it all worked in my case. I started working at Serotta in 1989 after nearly a decade or working in retail and racing at everything from the local to the national level on all type of bikes. After I’d been at Serotta for a few years I realized that I’d built literally hundreds of frames and fancied myself pretty good at it. I built Serottas in the accepted fashion and built personal bikes for myself that had lots of extra “features” that showed what a fancy builder I was. I ran cables in funny ways and used extreme geometry on my personal bikes because I could and if 73* was good 75* must be better. I was trying to show off.
It was at about this time a good friend who believed in me offered to lend me money at no interest to start my own framebuilding business. We sat and talked and clinked our beer bottles together and I proclaimed, “I don’t need these guys” about Serotta. But something deep inside told me not to go there. So I dragged my feet on the loan deal and eventually it all vaporized.
Over the next few years I had the unique opportunity to build frames for some of the most talented racers in US history. None of these bikes needed fancy cable routing or silly angles, they just needed to fit and work right. This was a huge lesson for me. At this point of my Serotta career I was the custom builder and I built about 120 bikes a year, start to finish, by myself. No heroics, it was just what the job was. This was the era where I learned to be a true framebuilder in my eyes. I had all the building operations down to rote which cleared the way to allow me to take those various skills and bring them all together with the new skill of pragmatic design and voila! I was a framebuilder.
The ironic thing was that I felt like a framebuilder many years and hundreds of frames earlier but in reality ” I didn’t know, what I didn’t know” and I was a guy who could do basic brazing and machining, but I was not a framebuilder.
I left Serotta in 1999 and shortly after met Carl Strong. I taught Carl what I knew about framebuilding and he taught me what he knew about running a business. It was, IMO, the final thing I needed to become a professional builder. For me, on the path I wandered down, it took about 22 years in total, 10 years of working the counter and backroom in a retail shop and racing, many thousands of frame designs and builds and moving across the country to have all the things I needed to hang out my own shingle and make a living as a professional builder.
Are there faster ways to get this done? No doubt there are. Does one need to build that many frames to get it down? No, probably not. Could others have done it better and faster at the same time? I have no doubt. That said no one was more passionate or enthusiastic than I was then, or even now I think. Even though I thought I was the shit in 1992 I didn’t know what the hell I was doing in the big scheme of things. I had much to learn then, as I still do now.
Would I have bought a frame or recommended that others do so from the 1992 me, knowing what I know now? No way.
My 2.500 cents.
Dave
Administrator
Canada Eh....
apparently, owning some nice fixtures, a digital camera, and a flickr account for some.
-g
In the drops
Hey Sam,
You missed Llewellyn (and Pegoretti...I'm not sure his wait list...Unless you were just sticking to those on your own continent?)
Llewellyn's wait is less than a year and the Aussie exchange rate is pretty dang good.
But then, I'm biased. :)
VSalon Poet Laureate
dave kirk -----
quite a man -----
respectfully,
ronnie :)
Sock Doping
I am shocked actually that Llewellyn's wait is less than a year. Definitely add him to the lugged steel category then. I talked with him a few years ago and the cost of getting the bike into the U.S was prohibitive.
Rouleur
brian baylis should be on the short list
Paceline
The only problem with the part time vrs full time thing is that I feel that some of the most brilliant talent in any craft can come from the sidelines. The folks that just "get it." That shade tree mechanic type that can shake everyone up and revolutionize the thinking of how something should be done. It's not common by any means, but it does happen. Many times these people aren't full time in the industry because they can do other things that are easier, less time consuming, or pay more and go to the hobby because they have a passion/skill set for it.
As for experience, as Dave Kirk said, some might pick up on things or just have a general understanding faster than others. Surely you can look through builders with a long history and find ones that still don't really get it...or maybe don't get it as well as ones much less experienced in time/numbers. Or, perhaps don't get it for the specialty in which you are interested. Not to say that experience doesn't play a huge role, or that faster is better than slower in the long run, just that the "do they get it" vrs. time/numbers scale can be different and deceiving as a selling point.
To further complicate it, the internet doesn't always level the playing field on reputation. Someone deserving of praise might receive it, some perhaps more than deserved, while another does equal quality work out of view. I don't think anyone would argue that this site doesn't have "favorites." Most are probably 100% deserving, but are they the only ones out there?
What has been said by others should lead down a safe(r) path. But, if you have the knowledge and time to filter through the rest, there are likely very rewarding choices to be had.
It ain't all black and white.
Canada Eh....
and sometimes when it is black and white,
it still comes out just wrong....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasc...07068/sizes/l/
-g
Paceline
Ouch!
OTF
:adore:
In the drops
Great list, but I notice Margo Conover of Luna Cycles is not on there. She has a great reputation amongst women cyclists I know. Am I missing something? I know she only works in steel, but same goes for some of the others on the list. I don't know her personally, but I admire her work and she makes excellent posts on a womens cycling forum I frequent.
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