Someone Else's Musings On My Trade atmo -

[timdude]

I come from a trade unionist family and none of my relatives are from Chicago. I bleed union. Unlike others here, I have a huge stake in this game. I'd rather have a union man or woman get my money especially if it meant i wouldn't have to sign my life away to shipping and courier companies as well as the airlines as I have EVERY YEAR since Houston atmo.

My dad and I thank you for the support, I'm to lazy to take a pic of my card, my dad's is way cooler

[blasdelf]

I don't know where you have been, but nearly all of us from the pre-Y2K era have been "...communicating what that experience entails" since we got online atmo. The newer builders may have no experience and no numbers in their fingertips to speak of, but they do have one thing that's invaluable. And it's all cached online going back to the first listserves and every message board in between. We can't do the work for them but we've certainly articulated every step along the way, shot pictures of it, created how-to pages, mentored all and every business issue that you can imagine, and more. But until a cat has made hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds...) of units, he'll still be approaching the bench from the left hand side of the developmental time line.

You've been hitting on the "build lots of frames" thing for a long time and you're absolutely right


There's another widespread issue though, that affects even some of the well-apprenticed new cats — building the types of bikes that they themselves have not ridden the absolute shit out of

The underlying thing linking a lot of the builders doomridesout is talking about is that they got into all this through "sweet fixies". Plenty of em set up their own bikes the same way, they haven't ridden enough for their ass to tell them where the saddle needs to be. They don't intuitively see what could be wrong with trying to shorten the reach by choking everything up, or that there's even a wrong way to orient handlebars + levers.




^ Skip to 0:50

[Eric Estlund]

I just got back a few hours ago and am a little travel worn, but here are a few thoughts-

-Every year I read more articles bemoaning the lack of "real bike" coverage then I do articles highlighting said bikes.
-I don't leave my booth very much, but the guys I can see from my 10x 10 are generally selling/showing what they make- even if it's an extreme example of their range.
-All of my bikes are what I sell/make/ show. At every show I have people ask me if they are "show bikes". Sure, in that every bike I sell is one I would be happy to bring to NAHBS.

[zank]

If there's anything I think a custom builder with years of experience dating from previous 'eras' of framebuilding should take away from NAHBS (and the age of the internet photo gallery in general, which NAHBS is a symptom of), it is that the primary challenge for them going forward is going to be communicating what that experience entails. In other words, why is a veteran framebuilder a commodity compared to a recent UBI grad? The importance of geometry, having the wheels in the right spot, and specifically sorting through the 'noise' in customer input- this is the kind of thing that makes an established builder a cut above the glut of younger peers. Example-- leaving out the name, I can think of a pic I've seen of a bike by a younger builder which is obviously super-stiff- 44mm head tube, ginormous stays, massively shaped and oversized tubing, with a slammed-forward saddle, bizarrely rotated bar/hood position, and short stem. In other words, the builder took fit numbers at face value from a customer who didn't know their fit, and built the bike as if Andre Greipel was going to be contesting sprints on it, because it was a 'race bike'. It looked uncomfortable and unnecessarily stiff. If I were an established builder who knew better, in terms of fit/filtering customer input, etc., my question would be how to communicate that experience in ways that don't shit on younger builders or say 'no' overtly to be customer (including insulting the wattage in the cottage). I've been interested in custom bikes for a few years, entirely in the age of the internet photo gallery, and if it's taken me that long to figure out these differences between the lifers and the recent entries into the scene, the established builders need to work on finding a new way to communicate what they do to the public. Maybe this is a problem I'm making up, but it should be obvious what Don Walker, J.P. Weigle, et al have to offer that a newer builder doesn't, and not just some sentimental tripe about tradition, either. Its not just the end user of the bike who needs to know, either, it's anybody who would pick up a torch in 2013.

I find the best way is to to talk to people on rides, and while drinking beer after races. It may limit a builder geographically speaking, but that gives the builder an excuse to travel around a bit to see what's going on in a different racing scene or at a new trail system. The money I saved by not going to Denver will allow me to hit at least a half dozen events outside of New England this year. I like meeting people in the trenches.

[Matthew J]

Wow the unions you guys long for must be very different than the ones I have dealt with over the years. As a veteran of 50+ trade shows at McCormick Place in Chicago, I have been witness and victim to some outrageous behavior, extortion, waste and laziness. Maybe Northeast based unions are different.

Hear this knock on Chicago shows from time to time. The Teamsters sure do seem to be able to move one large show after another in and out of McCormick Place. Over the past 15 years the complex has nearly tripled in size and will be adding a new hotel to the mix, none at local tax payer expense. Hardly stands to reason that kind of money would be pouring in if a crucial component was bad.

[Gummee]

The reason NAHBS is in winter is because I race cx all fall. That's
why you don't see me anyplace all fall except at a cx venue atmo.

...and he races quite well I have to add!

I think this image is one of the big reasons I :snore when NAHBS is covered incessantly on the cycling websites.


VeloNews NAHBS 2013 Awards

Best Beard: Kevin Batchelor, Mosaic Cycles. This is without a doubt the most hotly contested category at NAHBS. There are, in fact, more beards than bikes here, and the show's acronym secretly stands for North American Humongous Beard Show. So it is with great pride that we present Mr. Batchelor with the coveted Beardie, awarded for his most fiery beard. Honorable mentions also go to Josh Culbertson of Avery County Cycles and almost every other male at the show. Photo: Matthew Beaudin | VeloNews.com


Not my cuppa, but if it floats YOUR boat...


M

[e-RICHIE]

I think (once again...) J.P.'s text linked in the OP is spot on and I write that as both an early adapter of my trade as well as a fan of the post Y2K way of living in an e-world. This award cited below is just one of many examples supporting Partland's POV about the show as well as the niche. Here we have a mainstream news org (as mainstream as one might find in cycling) taking the mickey out of the weekend in order to infect its readership with the writer's particular brand of blogging. I would have used the words writing or journalism, but taking it to the level that he did, the writer doesn't deserve as much. I am sure he can turn a word and phrase if he has to, but since he focused on facial hair, I'll reserve the two words for a time when I see something on a higher plane atmo.

I think this image is one of the big reasons I :snore when NAHBS is covered incessantly on the cycling websites.


VeloNews NAHBS 2013 Awards

Best Beard: Kevin Batchelor, Mosaic Cycles. This is without a doubt the most hotly contested category at NAHBS. There are, in fact, more beards than bikes here, and the show's acronym secretly stands for North American Humongous Beard Show. So it is with great pride that we present Mr. Batchelor with the coveted Beardie, awarded for his most fiery beard. Honorable mentions also go to Josh Culbertson of Avery County Cycles and almost every other male at the show. Photo: Matthew Beaudin | VeloNews.com

[Burnette]

This will be my first post here, after much time lurking, seems a good time to offer some thoughts from different perspective. I'm in the process of figuring out what I want in my next bike. Current bike is my trusty '06 Redline Cyclocross Disc R (I was ahead of the curve, riding a disc bike on the road for the last six years now). A test ride on a steel Bontrage MTB (yeah, he use to make MTBs) years ago left me with the desire to have a steel bike for the road. A bike that rides like I want it too, one that is made for my proportions (5' 3" tall, 129lbs in form).
It's also something passed from my father, he always tried to buy the best of something, things that performed well for the situation. Fishing tackle, cameras, watches, shoes, even though he is gone now many of the things he aquired are still here and most still work or have worn well.
Bike builders crowd my favorites on my browser and I have saved emails from a few here. So I come at this from the perspective of a potential customer.
Let me say first of all folks, it's gonna be OK. Seriously. The same people who scream for purity would be the same people who would call NAHBS a boring bike shop meet if it weren't phone pic worthy, water cooler talk bikes that draw the casual bike enthusiast to the show.
I'm also a car enthusiast and car journalist bemoan the same thing about car shows as some do about NAHBS. Cars that are pushed onto turn tables that have no engine or have gadgets that aren't technologically feasible to make now, oh how they cry for the loss of "substance". What they forget is that it is a "show". You have to have some pop for the posters (well, web images now) to get people in the door. Don't care that I can't drive that low super car, it's just candy, it's OK to dream, stretch and exagerate. Almost always at car shows, the major draw is a car that you can't drive or you can't afford.
The candy wears off quickly and most patrons will gravitate to whatever category they are interested in. The next NAHBS will be in Charlotte, NC, an hour, twenty minutes away from me, so count me in for that one. I'll take phone pics of the wild, shiny stuff, then I will talk with the builders and take pics of bikes I can buy/ride. Why people think a bike show should be any different than anything other enthusiast show I don't get. That sparkly Fat Bike doesn't blind me from seeing that steel road bike that has some serious thought put into it.
I'll probably buy before next year, maybe in the fall. Going to ride this summer and ask myself questions about what I want, what is missing from my current ride, etc...
Is NAHBS relevant? Only if it's in driving distance for me. Would it color my buying decision? Yes it could, talking to a builder and seeing his work first hand is a powerful thing. It's a powerful tool to get your work noticed and it surely generates interest. If a builder couldn't make it, it would be worth it to send some bikes and a representative.
Is NAHBS a must? No, I didn't go, Zank didn't go, but he is on my list and somewhere down the line he and I will hopefully have a conversation, as well as other builders I've never met. And hopefully soon. It's time for a new bike.

[liberacefanboy]

Now just because I love flake and shiny things, I LOVE SHINY THINGS, when i see people type, and hear people say that fat bikes are easy to build and such....well, that's wrong.I put serious thought into all my bikes. Weather it be a road or a fattie. I don't know who you are referencing , but I had some shiny flakey stuf there, so I guess I must say something for the " Shiny, Flakey Brotherhood of bikes"...
Honestly?
Fatties are tougher. They type of bike that it is , it is harder to build because of the "standards " that are set before it. They are still young and evolving. A lot of times you really, really have to do your homework.
Road bikes? Easy, these standards have been in place for a long while. they are out there on paper and we all know what works for them.
Not that I am trying to pick an internet fight, I may just be cranky from all the stitches in my butt.( seriously, watch where you put bike stands) But I think that in this industry, when people see something flashy, like lets say, a monster truck, it is passed over as a simple redneck machine that is just loud and obnoxious . Well, look at all the technology put into them. IT IS AMAZING. We all get the trickle down benefit of this. I love fabrication stuff, there is always something to learn or take away from it.
Thanks for posting and welcome to the Salon!!
noren

[liberacefanboy]

Geeze.... after rereading the post above mine, he "gets it " . Why are bike shows different than the other shows where fabrication is the key??
I don't know.
I just hit some keyboards before some serious thought....
did not mean to derail the thread at hand.....
omg its Thursday.
noren

[Too Tall]

Noren FWIIW Hearing you pitch that sparkly fat bike with a coaster brake was is and will be one of my personal highlights for NAHBS and yeah I think there might be a pound of glitter in that paint job. Fact Peackock Grove is as real as real can get. So there's that.

NAHBS is many things. Not meaning to sound cryptic I'm VERY appreciative that it does exist and am privately criticial for what it could accomplish.

Beer Challenge, any MoFo within hitting distance of Noren will get the VSalon hook up if you can manage to teach him or his lovely friend how to upload a mother loving photo to Vsalon. xxoo

[CWinters]

Two years ago I wrote this about NAHBS. Here is a quote from it:

...it seems to me that the culture that has developed around the show creates unfair pressure on framebuilders to exhibit, which in turn is a huge financial strain for most of the builders. The fee for a booth at NAHBS is quite a large sum. Add to that the price of airfare and housing, plus the transport and insurance of numerous expensive bicycles, and the cost of exhibiting quickly adds up to several thousand dollars. Most framebuilders I know - even the "big names" - can hardly make ends meet as it is, and feeling compelled to exhibit at NAHBS every year ...makes life more difficult still. While it is true that no one is forcing them to go, there is implicit pressure. With NAHBS positioning itself as the biggest/greatest handmade bicycle show, potential customers who follow all the hyped up coverage start to expect framebuilders to exhibit at NAHBS. It is as if exhibiting in itself is perceived as a sign of industry recognition...

While I would not write a post like this today, I don't disagree with it. It was influenced by talking to a number of builders who described the NAHBS culture as ultimately destructive to those it intended to promote. (Framebuilders go broke to exhibit, so that big name brands can steal their ideas and benefit.)

Of course there is more than one perspective at play, and for every disgruntled builder there is a builder who feels they benefit from NAHBS. And, as others have said, I've no issue with some of the show bikes being over the top and impractical. They are show bikes after all. Concept bikes, the haute couture of the velo industry. I would have liked to attend this year as media, but it didn't work out. Maybe next year in NC.

[e-RICHIE]

Two years ago I wrote this about NAHBS. Here is a quote from it:

...it seems to me that the culture that has developed around the show creates unfair pressure on framebuilders to exhibit, which in turn is a huge financial strain for most of the builders. The fee for a booth at NAHBS is quite a large sum. Add to that the price of airfare and housing, plus the transport and insurance of numerous expensive bicycles, and the cost of exhibiting quickly adds up to several thousand dollars. Most framebuilders I know - even the "big names" - can hardly make ends meet as it is, and feeling compelled to exhibit at NAHBS every year ...makes life more difficult still. While it is true that no one is forcing them to go, there is implicit pressure. With NAHBS positioning itself as the biggest/greatest handmade bicycle show, potential customers who follow all the hyped up coverage start to expect framebuilders to exhibit at NAHBS. It is as if exhibiting in itself is perceived as a sign of industry recognition...

While I would not write a post like this today, I don't disagree with it. It was influenced by talking to a number of builders who described the NAHBS culture as ultimately destructive to those it intended to promote. (Framebuilders go broke to exhibit, so that big name brands can steal their ideas and benefit.)

Of course there is more than one perspective at play, and for every disgruntled builder there is a builder who feels they benefit from NAHBS. And, as others have said, I've no issue with some of the show bikes being over the top and impractical. They are show bikes after all. Concept bikes, the haute couture of the velo industry. I would have liked to attend this year as media, but it didn't work out. Maybe next year in NC.

You could certainly write the same post today and be 100 percent spot on atmo. What's the phrase - sooner or later we become our parents? In a perverse way, and in one no one could have anticipated, the niche has become exactly like J.P. writes about in the text linked in the OP. Some don't see it. Some don't like being seen that way. Some don't possess the filters to see it at all.

[jimmythefly]

Of course, as NAHBS becomes more widely known, there's new cachet to be found with sitting astride a bike that others don't recognize.


"Oh, this? It's a Nerfherder. Local guy, makes a few bikes a year. You've probably never heard of him."

/puts on thick black framed prescription glasses

[j44ke]

I'll just say that the analogy of show bikes to French couture might be a broken thing. The fashion houses that can afford to burn money and participate in couture (and it is participate, rather than simply design, because there are rules about employees, craft, etc. that must be obeyed to qualify) has dropped to about 10. That's from well, quite a few. So couture as a business model is really a museum piece. An antiquity. It doesn't work. Pret-a-porter is the main thing and even then, as in now, houses are developing secondary and tertiary lines in the attempt to bring the goods into reach of younger/less affluent/less established socially ambitious clientele. So you see Victoria Beckham's line and then you see, Victoria by Victoria Beckham and even Victoria Beckham for H&M. Or Stella McCartney for H&M. Or Isaac Mizrahi for Target (okay, maybe that's a bad example but Mizrahi is trying to pay his bills.) Because if these labels don't get people who are not their clientele to become their clientele and get in the habit of buying this stuff, they are going to run out of clientele due to mortality. They have to reach out to them. And that means prices and tight control on costs. Without the involvement of the French government, I think couture would basically be just Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel, and then once Karl died, that's all folks.

Whatever. I mean to say that I think from a business standpoint, the pressure on the show bikes is MORE intense to produce results. The cost of time and resources is so much higher than a client's bike made to fill a pre-existing order that if the show bike does not result in enough orders to cover costs, then I don't understand it from a business perspective. I certainly understand it from an art perspective, a Mount Everest perspective (to see if it can be done) or from the palate cleansing perspective (got to be fancy.) So I am not saying don't make crazy Cherubim stuff or whatever. But if someone is going to make them, show bikes should be central to the business plan, not some lost leader that is constructed in some pot-latch manner of resource consumption. They need to do work. They need to pay for themselves, not just in PR but orders, clients, money, career.

[christian]

I'll just say that the analogy of show bikes to French couture might be a broken thing.

The fuel of fashion is perfume. Rapha soap notwithstanding, there's no similar margin product in the bikey world.

[e-RICHIE]

The fuel of fashion is perfume. Rapha soap notwithstanding, there's no similar margin product in the bikey world.

This.

None of us in the trade has a Bernard Arnault or a Richemont Group behind us. The fashion designer and scent makers Jorn mentions all exist as window dressing for the brand so that the masses can buy the dumbed down, made-for-the-market versions of what they show on runways and in W Magazine. I dunno how long it's gonna take for the niche-istas to get it through their collective heads atmo. We are not them.

[CWinters]

I'll just say that the analogy of show bikes to French couture might be a broken thing...

Yes in the way you mean it. No in the way I mean it.

The fashion houses that can afford to burn money and participate in couture (and it is participate, rather than simply design, because there are rules about employees, craft, etc. that must be obeyed to qualify) has dropped to about 10. That's from well, quite a few. So couture as a business model is really a museum piece. An antiquity. It doesn't work. Pret-a-porter is the main thing ...So you see Victoria Beckham's line and then you see, Victoria by Victoria Beckham and even Victoria Beckham for H&M. Or Stella McCartney for H&M. Or Isaac Mizrahi for Target (okay, maybe that's a bad example but Mizrahi is trying to pay his bills.) Because if these labels don't get people who are not their clientele to become their clientele and get in the habit of buying this stuff, they are going to run out of clientele due to mortality. They have to reach out to them. And that means prices and tight control on costs. Without the involvement of the French government, I think couture would basically be just Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel...

Not talking about Chanel, et al. Most of the recognisable fashion houses today are big, publicly traded companies or part of conglomerates. When I say haute couture, I mean the small independent designers with innovative, original work, of whom most people outside fashion industry circles have never heard. Much like framebuilders, these fashion designers produce work on a small scale - either entirely made to order, or in tiny batches. Those who can afford a space at fashion week present highly conceptual collections that might get noticed and reviewed by critics, the ideas trickling down to the more mainstream houses. Over time, some of the independent designers will make a name for themselves and eventually either grow to become full fledged fashion houses in their own right (with prêt-à-porter lines), or be poached by one of the existing, big fashion houses, for whom they will become inhouse designers. And so it goes. In that sense, the system does have some parallels to the bicycle industry. There are small but influential fashion designers out there eking out a living through conceptual and custom work, impacting fashion trends behind the scenes in ways that are not visible to the average consumer.

As for that Chanel bike... Oy, don't get me started on that topic; I don't want to rant.

[e-RICHIE]

This.

None of us in the trade has a Bernard Arnault or a Richemont Group behind us. The fashion designer and scent makers Jorn mentions all exist as window dressing for the brand so that the masses can buy the dumbed down, made-for-the-market versions of what they show on runways and in W Magazine. I dunno how long it's gonna take for the niche-istas to get it through their collective heads atmo. We are not them.

Also, and by the way...

While I am shedding layers of skin here I'll add this. It's a perverse (there's that word again atmo...) business model that sees or allows folks to spend such a large chunk of their promotional-slash-branding budget on a single broadcast - in some cases, a disproportionate amount to their normal yearly expenses - just to be in a place where all their pals are so that they can talk shop when traffic is slow and then later after hours. The goal is to create awareness and maybe write a little business. But when you get home, if all you have is an order, or maybe several orders, you lost money. If you can't leave the ordeal and either 1) sell for more money as a result of the goodwill and aura-ness you've created or, 2) let your designs be cloned so you can profit from your intellectual property and, er- aura-ness - making it into the mainstream, I hope your last name is Rockefeller atmo. Just having more work isn't the way to sustain because you still have to do the work. If I have to explain that, I may as well auction off the Vostro.

When I was on the Kurt Kinetic this afternoon I realized something about myself that I've never articulated. For all the popping off about the trade, for advice given, the tough love, the image dumps on Flickr, the press-fleshing at the shows wherever they happen to be, my motivation isn't to help folks become framebuilders. I can explain stuff until I am blue in the face but the receiver still has to do it. My motivation is this: I pop off because I want to see a cat be able to make well designed, beautifully executed, safe (can I please use that word again...), and SAFE bicycles AS WELL AS sustain a business doing this. The latter is inseparable from the former in my mind, and that is why I hit these threads so hard.

And just so the convo doesn't get completely lost, J.P.'s text still resonates.

Lastly, since I have never noticed tha V Place has emoticons I'll use some now...

[Jayme]

Seems to me what Josh et al are doing with Ballers is a much better way to spend a weekend for an effbuilder.