Richard Sachs Cycles

[MikeS]

They're on my Flickr Albums pages.

Ah, right. I remember that one. Very nice.

[ashwa64]

I love the evolution of the aesthetic of your frames, Richard. I would have never been able to foresee preferring another look to your classic red to the extent that i do. The recent red with the red ht might be my favorite. Keep killing it!

[e-RICHIE]

I love the evolution of the aesthetic of your frames, Richard. I would have never been able to foresee preferring another look to your classic red to the extent that i do. The recent red with the red ht might be my favorite. Keep killing it!

Giving myself up to House Industries - priceless and precious.

[ashwa64]

HI does incredible work... i have all kinds of stuff from them from their 'brackets' boxes to their eames blocks, kitchen towels, too. you guys make a great team. such a shame about rich... so young, so talented.

[e-RICHIE]

HI does incredible work... i have all kinds of stuff from them from their 'brackets' boxes to their eames blocks, kitchen towels, too. you guys make a great team. such a shame about rich... so young, so talented.

Thank you.

[ron l edmiston]

--- so very rare...
so very few can go "back to the future" with enjoyable success...

ronnie

[Lionel]

Richard,

Saw your FB post on the 47 years at the bench and building the last two orders "on the list".

Congrats ! This must be a bitter sweet feeling.

Looking forward to the next step.

[WFSTEKL]

The rock of Sisyphus has finally settled.

[e-RICHIE]

Conceptual Thought

Bicycle making is part metalwork, part design, and part alchemy. The person with the tools tries to coerce a batch of materials into a shape that mirrors his vision. These parts aren't equal. Unless they are. More than anything, the bicycle reflects the maker's foundation. His experience. The commitment he's made to tame the beast.

There aren't that many ways to make the same bicycle, that is - assuming we're narrowing down the size for a given user. Leave the boundaries of conventional dimensions and the unit will fit poorly. Or steer like a wheelbarrow. Or the range of parts we grab during assembly may not work fluidly.

When I read this Connecticut Magazine review of Lary Bloom's biography of Sol Lewitt, it resonates. Few of us invent anything. We take some lessons, summon up the drive to do this making thing, and have at it. The ones who last are those who digest the best. Who look around the most. And who respect the past rather than ignore it.

I won't compare making bicycles with art. Nor making art with fashion. Nor fashion with making bicycles. Nor making music with anything. The line that runs through these is that certain tenets exist and should be adhered to. Lines to stay between. Those who don't know this will if they pay attention. If they don't, I hope they marry well.

There's a reason to practice. There's a reason we practice. A mother lode of influences makes it hard to see what's real and what's only for the moment. Or the model year. Taking leads from those outside our circle who've become masters in theirs is a way for us to have a deeper impact in our own.

All This By Hand

https://www.amazon.com/Sol-LeWitt-Id...xk0Zrt08g9F5eU

[e-RICHIE]

One day at the Leverett Village Co-Op we met a man. A writer. Or maybe a writer to be. Deb had just graduated Simmons with a Masters Degree in Writing for Children. So our chance encounter came with some commonality. I just watched. And listened.

When the posturing was over, the man went to his car and grabbed a manuscript. Told us about the story. Used the word prolix a lot. And then turns to the very last page and is beyond excited to point out that the book doesn't end with a period. The last word is just that.

I've got a full plate of emotions. And that man's short period in my personal space looms large. I'm looking at my timeline. Measuring the work that's been done. Contrasting it with the life in front of me. Trying to make sense.

I'm in the middle. Not stuck in it. Just in it. There's no next place until there's no place at all. Is no place at all is really no place or is it what's next. What is it. Where is it. Too many have gone there. My heart asks questions. Reliving moments gives me strength. Reliving them also weakens me.

Being in the middle comes with time to ponder. To wonder. About next. There's this hallway. I hope a long one. A door waits. When I get near does it suddenly close. Will it swing wide open. Does everything stop. Or continue. Maybe that's when the story starts

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

There's a moment in every assembly when the line appears. And you start to cross it. The other side is where hope is. And hope is everything when you make something for others. Because you make it for yourself first. Sometimes only. The rest is part of an equation that ties creativity to commerce. That ties desire to supply. I make for myself.

That line comes up fast. On the first day for me. It's when I'll get a sense of where the material stands in contrast to everything else I've touched. The line is thin enough to know what's past it. The line is thick enough to get stuck on it and wonder where things will go. Tolerances. Craftwork. Expectations.

When you make something for others, dreams are involved. Not theirs. Mine. These are all I care about. And why I come to the bench each day. So when the line comes up fast, I hope work doesn't go sideways. Because it can. It does. And when that happens I have to dig deeper. Because everything I need lives on the other side of the line.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

My Truth

The practice is the master. The maker is the servant.

I’m that guy. I get this. Repetition. Routine. Relentlessness. Cut from a different cloth. I’ve observed it. Disecected it. Defended it. Advocated for it. That ship sailed. The few cats who got it with me – some I knew only from afar. One I knew like a brother. All are gone.

In the mad rush to create energy around making a bicycle, as if it’s some noble pursuit. An answer to a higher calling. Bleeding for your craft. It’s become dumbed down. A side show to a larger carnival that routinely eats its own.

There are two thought bubbles that haunt my days. One is about experience. And the path walked to get there. And why can’t more folks look at the tailors at Kiton as role models. The other is about me. And why I even should care. I’ve eked out a career. Had an adult life at the bench. Everyone else can just go to Hell.

This is my truth.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

Main Line

He was Bob Scott and that's all I knew. His name was on an order form from one of my dealers. I made the bicycle. Maybe a year later I get a nice thank you note. He was Robert Montgomery Scott. And the stationery came from the office of the President at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Now I knew a little more. But I never asked.

Mr. Scott and I became pen pals. I saved the letters. And articles about him. One in Town & Country shows him on a black Richard Sachs at Androssan, his estate in Villanova. Over the years he introduced me to his friend Walter Annenberg - a name I knew as a fellow Peddie School boy, though some 50 years separated our days in Hightstown.

All of this happened in the 1980s. And it was a small detour in a life I was living that was in sharp contrast to the ones men these men had. I was fortunate to have Mr. Scott as a client. But we came from different stations. In my work, I never ask who a person is. Or what he does. Or if he's connected. Sometimes I find out. But I never ask.

In the time that we were exchanging letters, Bob Scott and I never spoke on the telephone. We never met. But I knew the man from the time he gave me in correspondence. There was a courtesy and humanity in his paragraphs. He took the time to make a connection. We connected. I knew the man from his words and kindness.

In the very first letter Mr. Scott wrote, he waxes on about the pleasure his bicycle gives him. "If the truth be known, it has become a major distraction from the work I should be doing at the the Art Museum, and there are moments when I think it should be on exhibit here and not encumbered by my body going through the Philadelphia countryside."

Janny Scott is the daughter of Robert Montgomery Scott. She's an accomplished journalist in her own right. Last week she was interviewed on NPR. On Sunday, the New York Times reviewed her latest book about growing up Scott. It's called The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father. It's her story to tell. I'll stick with mine.

All This By Hand

[NYCfixie]

...In the time that we were exchanging letters, Bob Scott and I never spoke on the telephone. We never met. But I knew the man from the time he gave me in correspondence. There was a courtesy and humanity in his paragraphs. He took the time to make a connection. We connected. I knew the man from his words and kindness...

A glorious time before bits, bytes, and pixels.

[e-RICHIE]

07002

That’s my childhood home and where I lived until I went out into the world. The unit with the white garage door, and the trash can next to it. The Rothmans lived in the house with the red garage, and on the other side of us, the Powers. Every two houses, exactly the same as the next two. Some of my Bayonne peeps might see this and chime in. I go hot and cold on nostalgia. But the first 18+ years of my life, on West 27th Street, at that particular time in this country’s history – it was the perfect storm of security, challenges, and possibilities for this kid. I was blessed.

[e-RICHIE]

Maligned

As a bicycle maker, once a bicycle maker, I became obsessed with tolerances. After a decade of looking at the exterior trying to master it, it was clear(er) to me that the whole mattered more. I could decorate. I knew about position and morphology. Design parameters and limitations. But the making aspect was a black art that no one would could articulate. Points have to rest in a specific place for centerlines to zero out. It became a fetish. I chased for years. By the 1990s I realized that it was an impossible path to walk. Perhaps by acceptance. Maybe in defeat. My bicycles were less straight than those made by others. Once I let the metal tell me where it wanted to be, everything made sense. Mastery is overrated. And malignment will only make you work harder.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

Making

Making. A life. Because that’s what it is. Dropped off at the bus station. No return ticket. It’s about finding a gig. Something to laugh at. Someone to laugh with. A melody to hum. A way to spend days. Some people are pushed. Others pulled. I was lured. As a teenager. I grabbed a classified. And answered before reading the words. There was adventure hiding in newsprint. And before I turned twenty, a wrinkled and curled up forefinger begged me on another path. Steered me from the rubber-lined walls of convention. Set me free. Placed me in a box that’s missing a flap. Often too small. And most times nonexistent.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

With all the equipment and experience and checks and balances at my disposal one might think nailing it is part of the routine. That would depend on the definition of nailing it. The it is a moving target. If you're lucky you can stand over it stare it down and then take your heel and keep it right where you want it. And where you want it might not even be where it belongs. But at least you're in the game. You have a say. And that heel is proof.

There are the days. The days when the word sideways is used. It's a twenty dollar word that replaces phrases like I fucked up. Or this one is a tad less than It should be. Or one I use more often than I'll admit to in interviews - I fucked the fuck up. When something goes sideways it's part of the lesson I'm still learning. That question in the thought bubble near my left ear. The one that reads, "Why the absolute fuck did THAT just happen?"

Somewhere way after the 10,000 hour thing and a bit before the Takumi thing. The 60,000 hours thing. There's a pop quiz. A refresher course. A reminder that mastery comes in stages. If at all. These moments descend from God only knows where. They come to the bench to remind me I'm not a machine. That despite hitting the ON switch each morning before the first file is touched. Despite it all. Something greater than all of us together controls the OFF switch.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

A file stroke is conversation. I pick up the tool. One of them. And try to talk to the metal. The metal always talks back. This much I learned early on. My job is to listen. To talk back. To ask the metal for more time to make my point. To convince the metal that what I have in mind is best for all. The metal hears me. Some times the metal listens. Often it shows me why I'm wrong. And should stop talking. And move on to other areas of the bicycle frame. The conversation is a process. An adult life full of conversations has convinced me that the frame I began making isn't the frame I finished making.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

The pages turn at the same rate of speed no matter how many words are on them or how slowly one reads. In the time it takes a heart to beat, we're looking at so little sand that counting the grains as they pass almost seems possible.

There was the day in 1971 I sought redemption. That job that would hold my attention until Goddard College could teach me - I didn't get it. To right my self-esteem, I journeyed to London. And ended up at the Witcomb family's front door.

It was never my plan to do this. Until it was. The first decade was about denial. I can leave anytime. And in a heartbeat, I began to accept my place. Did I ever get even? Has anything been redeemed? I didn't want to be a bicycle maker. I became one.

Fate is a word I can't define. Is it like the wind, taking us from the left all the way over to the right? What say do we have? If we stand around long enough, will our names be called? We get a turn. The lucky ones may get a few. And then it's up to the next in line.

We're not born with a playbook. If we stay light enough the wind can catch us and blow us around a bit. We never land. Because the wind is ever-present. And before long, we have stories to share. Advice to parse out. And a life lived.

All This By Hand