Richard Sachs Cycles

[e-RICHIE]

Cover Boy

I walked into Bruno’s studio in the late 1990s, hoping to begin a relationship. He was a top tier studio photographer with an emphasis on classic cars, My pal Rick from Guilford put us in touch. Bruno also liked and rode bicycles so I felt comfortable that my needs for product shots could be easily understood. It’s no small task trying to convey your own vision for what you do to others whose task includes tapping their vision to make it work. There’s often that icky line where you have to accept that what you want will come out differently. The light hitting paint a certain way. The handlebars turned a degree from where you wanted them. The rotation of the cranks. Shit like that. Over time, I learned, no – I accepted – that these are collaborations and the image is almost more the shooter’s than mine. A successful join is when you like his versions even better than what you came in hoping for. With Bruno, I always did.

But the point here is this – when I did walk in that first time, he says, “I know you.” Turns out Bruno shot this picture of me almost 20 years earlier for Union Trust. I had to be reminded it even existed, and that his capture made it onto the cover of the bank’s in house magazine.

For the detail vampires, the location is the Giro de New London, a criterium that seemingly ran forever in Connecticut. I’m wearing Puma shoes, a pair of Moa 80/20 shorts, and that lovely Belgian track jersey I still had from when I lived in London in 1972. It was blue with slim red stripes. Brancale helmet, I think. Super Record Campagnolo. Cinelli VIP ‘bars, stem, and saddle. No index shifting. Back then, your hands and fingers were indexed and you knew intuitively how to shift, and when. Cool was about to end in the next few seasons.

[e-RICHIE]

Immersion Training

TW3 (look it up).

Some 14 days ago I got this tool, the newest in my quiver in a while, and wanted to immediately transition over. It’s simple, but not easy. All tools have their own life. They work with you, you work with them. Frame making isn’t Lego despite what’s shown at the craft fairs and on some blog sites. There’s a way, a developed way. And you have to think of every wrench you hold, and every clamp you clamp, and every block you place something in, and every single piece of material you want to someday be a bicycle, and you have to respect every single step. The tool doesn’t do the work. Often it doesn’t even make the work easier or even better. But for anyone who makes things, a new tool is a chance to get closer. If not closer, then at least a chance to feel better about the trying.

Last week ending yesterday, Saturday at 2PM so I could finally get the fuck out of here and ride my bicycle again, last week I started and finished 14 forks. Well I didn’t finish them yet because I still have to turn down the crown races and mill the slot on the side of each crown. But I did make a pile of these with the sole intent of getting to know the new tool.

Lemme tell you this, the old tool loves the new tool. And it made the ride that much better.

That was the week that was.

[progetto]

Anyone wanting to know what it takes to learn how to be a frame builder, look no further than the master class. Repetition.

[e-RICHIE]

Accentuate

This is a photograph of a 4 X 5 transparency shot in the late 1990s. I forget the year. Bruno Ratensperger from Connecticut took the picture.

When it comes to detail, you want to accentuate the work you’d like appreciated. That means during the process you must over-accentuate some of it. Most of it actually. Bicycle frames come with a sculptural dimension that’s easily covered by paint. Worse yet, paint can bury it. In the steps leading up to finishing a joint, an assembly, or any part of the whole, one must look at the work and imagine it under a coating. Paint, especially wet paint, fills in areas where the craftsman agonizes over the file strokes, and the curves, and the edges. The maker thinks of shape whereas the painter thinks of smooth. Since it’s never finished until the paint dries, the goal is to work an area to the point of knowing what it will look like once someone sprays over it.

I tend to use and overuse my small but aggressive barrette files to over-accentuate the work so that, when Joe Bell lays down the enamel, his contribution will more likely highlight the details rather than just turn everything another color and protect it from the elements.

[happycampyer]

Love the notch code.

[e-RICHIE]

The Everyday Struggle

On balance, I’m about the whole rather than the parts that comprise it. But when I struggle, and every start brings struggle, it comes from the part. I focus on it, obsess over it. And it becomes my demon, as if my life’s work, my legacy, will be connected to it, whatever the it is at a given time. Then miraculously, I continue on and barely remember what it was that so bothered me the next day. All struggles get replaced with others.

The it can be many things. A process. How parts fit. Or if they measure correctly. The struggle can be with a tool that doesn’t want to work when you do. It can be about, or with, the client. Because sometimes the client doesn’t want to work when you do. No matter what becomes the struggle, it will own me.

Sometimes I look at these smaller moments as part of the making of things, the organic charm that comes with the evolution of handwork. And from the maker’s time at the bench and any hand/eye skills that devolve from years of use and abuse. Not and never added for said charm, but allowed, or maybe accepted, as a way to speak to every man’s return to struggle, the very point at which it all begins.

[rwsaunders]

Richard....I find the combination of your images and your written word to be very powerful and the effort is much appreciated.

[e-RICHIE]

Transparencies R Us

Continuing on yesterday’s theme, here’s a 4 X 5 from 1982 taken by Ken (sorry but I forgot the last name). Ken’s studio was on Union Square right above The Underground and almost directly across from Paragon Sporting Goods. This shoot was my first ever time under real lights and by a real shooter. It also was part of the launch for the then new RS logo and several other identity program changes that came at the same time. We did a couple of bicycles, a layout of three frames, and then did each frame on its own. I’ll post them here someday.

The bicycle was stunning in its time. Columbus tubing, Nervex Ref 32 lugs, full Campagnolo Super Record, Cinelli VIP with my name pantographed in the stem. The good stuff. The tires look a little wonked on this image and I think we shot a test pattern when the unit was being held with some used wheels.

This is a photograph that I took of the transparency by holding it up to the sky and pulling the trigger. Someday I may get a scanner. But this is cooler. More organic. Holistic. Elegant. And honest.

[e-RICHIE]

Kodak Moment

I have a bunch like this from the Ray Perkins shoot in 1984 (I think it was). This may be Ray’s personal bicycle. He shot two red units for me, one a bicycle and another just the frame and fork. Lotsa’ 4 X 5 transparencies from that collaboration. This one’s a little curled, and I’m also holding it up to the clouds here and trying to take a picture without catching any rain drops, hence the distortion.

In real life this negative yielded a beyond stunning image. Every edge, line, and smallest of detail was so perfectly in focus. And I love the angle too. Leaning away just enough to get the good stuff without being the ubiquitous mug shot – we have a few of those too.

[false_aesthetic]

Almost no one photographs like that these days.

These photos make me smile!

[e-RICHIE]

Bruno’s Own

Here’s a cool one. It’s picture I took of a 4 X 5 transparency held up to the sky. That’s my thumb print on the lower left.

This is a 1998 shot of a bicycle I made for Bruno, the photographer. It’s all Campagnolo Record or whatever the top of the line group was called in the day, and with a host of components chosen to complement the Italian parts. Columbus tubing. The lugs I designed for Bridgestone that, years later, became the lugs I designed for Rivendell that, when I used them on my own bicycles were further elaborated from the original shapes. JB used some Dupont ChromaLusion paint that was popular then. It had this quality that, depending on your line of sight, the hue would change slightly.

This bicycle – it was a very nice one. The color wasn’t my choice, it was the client’s. We were all happy with the result. And the studio shot was and is excellent. It may not be evident from the post, but the top tube was set up to follow the horizon and all else fell into place. I was interested in the side view because it tells the most complete story in one view, but I was bored with the from-the-drive-side mug shots that so many use for their calling cards.

[srolius]

Richard,

Those slides can be scanned with unlimited resolution. More that any digital camera could do today :D
A Nikon LS-30 or something like that would do the job (around 200 usd used)
There are amazing details on those slides.
For those of us that have never seen a RS live its gold worth.
of course the time spended on that is an issue ... you better continue this insane frame building work

[MarkC]

These are great Richard. Was always fun seeing new bikes from you and Peter pop up under colleagues back in the early '80s

-Mark

[Rayburn Shaun]

Richard-

I have really enjoyed this thread, especially the last few weeks. Many thanks and keep on keepin' on.

Tom

[dy74n]

Richard - Care to elaborate on how you discovered a passion for Mr. Nagasawa's bikes, or your relationship with him?

[e-RICHIE]

Richard - Care to elaborate on how you discovered a passion for Mr. Nagasawa's bikes, or your relationship with him?

http://www.richardsachs.com/site/200...was-influence/

[dy74n]

Nagasawa’s Influence | RICHARD SACHS CYCLES

awesome. Ever have any Keirin frames in your personal collection (the 1981)? cheers!

[e-RICHIE]

awesome. Ever have any Keirin frames in your personal collection (the 1981)? cheers!

Negative - I was never into that.
Thank you.

[e-RICHIE]

Threes

Three frames circa 1982. A picture taken of a 4 X 5 transparency held up to the light. Original image shot by Ken whose last name I no longer remember, but whose studio was on Union Square above The Underground and almost directly across the street from Paragon Sports. Colors are dark green metallic, white pearl, and flamboyant pink.

You want the chrome you pay for the chrome.

[e-RICHIE]

Kas-ish

Here’s one from 1982 taken by Ken – the guy whose name I can’t seem to summon up – with the studio on Union Square above The Underground. This 4 X 5 transparency shows a 54cm road frame painted in a dark gray hue with contrasting paint panels in champagne (the color not the drink from France). I was influenced by the Spanish Kas team bicycles from the 1970s and wanted some of that on some of what I was doing. Columbus tubing. Nervex Ref 32 lugs. Campagnolo parts. Someone asked about the frames being shown with components. I did that because it was how they were spec-ed and sold. Back then, the small amount of extra money I could get by installing some hardware wasn’t that small. Always thinkin’. Always thinking’.