Embarassments of poverty

If you are like me, and if you are lucky you probably aren't, you run a buisness all by yourself.Don't get me wrong.....I'm fine with it and it suits my abilities and inabilities: Ability to amuse myself while working diligently......essential. Inability to work for other companies that will likely have a heirarchy and tyrant boss of some sort......well, it got me here. So here I am, all by myself in my shop building frames. How long can it go on ? How many can I produce ? In the grand scheme of things, not all that many. This is the case with just about every small framebuilder......limited life of the builder and therefore, the buisness-hence , limited number of frames produced. It always warms my heart a little when I see one of my frames on ebay or craigslist described as "rare". Of course its rare, compared to a Trek. For small builders to offer a "Limited edition" is kind of silly.....they are all limited editions ! I can understand the need to produce an "Anniversary" model that signifies a milestone in one's career as a builder-I built one to celebrate ( or perhaps rue..) my 25th year since I built my first frame. The bikes is all assembled and hanging in my shop. Did people line up to buy it ? No.....so the 30th anniversary came and went without my building a commemorative frame.....I don't have the time, I guess. Maybe if I make it to 50........It is because of our short lifespan and miniscule production relative to large companies that some builders attempt ( and some succeed ) to establish an "exclusivity" about thier brand .......just like beachfront property or admission into one of those clubs that only people on the 'list' gain entry to. In reality, the person who writes the check gets the frame-at least that's all it takes to get on my list. My exclusive club has but one requirement.....just pay me for my work. Sure, custom frames are not cheap and the wait can be long, but a $ 350 deposit gets you on the list.....you don't need to be a certain age, you don't need a full head of hair, I won't ask you to write an essay on why you and not someone else should deserve to get the next frame I produce. There is no special handshake , there's no drug test......really, if you want a frame built and have the money and are willing to wait, you qualify. The whole concept of feeling special or elevated above your fellow cyclists because you have such and such's frame makes me a little ill. Heck, if it is a great frame and it fits you well and you are happy with it, definitely be proud of it....just don't expect anyone to bow to you as you ride by. I do make exceptions to my take on things here-there are a few guys who only produce a few frames a year and the artistic content of these masterpieces is undeniable. Even still, these few artisans will insist that it is still a bicycle made for riding foremost.....even if it will someday wind up in the Smithsonian. To end this rambling rant, I'll say this : Shows that promote bike building get a thumbs up from me. Shows and businesses that portray framebuilders as demi-gods and leaders of super-exclusive members only clubs don't even get a thumbs down from me.....they don't even get a thumb.....I need it to hold the welding rod, anyway. To these self-important strutting gasbags I ask " When your career is over, how would you like best to be forgotten ?".........I'll bet you won't be forgotten like me !

Don't thank me...

Every day I come to my shop and get to work , building the next frame or doing some sort of repair or modification. My day started out typically-I had a frame that I had started the day before and needed to finish it today or else I would be falling behind my self imposed shedule. The more efficient I am, the more money I make and the sooner the customer gets the frame-this is why I work many hours without thinking about who I depend on for the stuff that makes my job easier....sometimes making it possible at all. Today was a day where the lightning bolt hit...all of a sudden I realized that this particular frame was coming together really well and inspite of my need for expediency was actually fun to build. This isn't to say that framebuilding is normally not a fun thing , but it is often hard work with many chances for frustration. This brings me to a subject that is often on my mind: Good materials for small builders are not something that large companies want to produce any more. One by one the large companies that used to make quality stuff for the US market are deciding that there isn't enough profit in supplying small framebuilders , now that the large bicycle companies are all having their bikes made in Taiwan or China. With this being the case small framebuilders have a real problem looming in the near future.......the stuff they depend on to build with may be soon an extinct species. The solution ? Build the stuff here-and fortunately, there are a few folks still willing to do this. These folks are heros in my book because they don't care about the bottom line as much as they care about this symbiotic world of suppliers, builders, painters and others. The frame in the picture has yokes and dropouts designed by Mike Aherens. Mike's stuff is what he uses on his own bikes but he sells these excellent fittings to anyone who wants to build with them. I could not build this type of frame without Mikes stuff. Another US manufaturer of framebuilding suppies is Mark Norstad of Paragon Machine works. Nearly every frame I build has one of his bottom bracket shells , made right here in California. Paul Price of Paul Components makes a terrific steel track dropout....it isn't a product he makes a lot of money on -he makes them because builders want them . Kirk Pacenti may have his lugs and BB shells made overseas but he creates them for US builders for the most part. Hank Folsom of Henry James has been having lugsets cast in the US for thirty years and sells the last US made tubing, True Temper. These folks are going out on a limb financially to keep a small industry alive and none of them are getting rich . While large bicycle companies go away from metal frames in favor of carbon fiber ( No need for skilled labor such as welders or machinists ) the folks that make supplies for the small builder see value in sustaining the craft . Carbon fiber bicycles are very popular but they are probably the least green bike available. Metals of all kinds can be recycled and some can easily be repaired. This is not the case for carbon fiber for the most part . Essentially ,every carbon fiber frame is destined for the landfill. Today I though about that.....and the folks I depend on. I hope you all are thinking about it as well.

being there

It's 10:17 p.m. and I just got home from the shop. I got there about 9:15 a.m. - a long day by my standards but there was a time when my days at the shop were often this long or longer. When I still was working out of my garage and didn't have the array of machinery that I now am lucky to posess I would work long into the night, brazing frames together. I was so slow that it took me a week what I can now do in a day. This necessitated marathon work days that could go from 8:30 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. . I remember one night with the torch in my hand looking at the thermometer in my unheated garage one winter night. The thermometer read 28 degrees......I thought that the next time my dad would tell me about bad working conditions that he had endured I would tell him about this night. There was a difference, though....my dad was working a job he didn't like-I chose this job and here I was, reveling in how much it sucked. I could complain about how long the hours were and how low the pay was and the fact that the shop was filthy, unheated and not altogether pleasant.....trouble is I was a victim of myself. While I remain dedicated to what I'm doing still , I can spend the hours, answer the emails and phone calls , think that I'm doing a great job...then I remember-I have a repair hanging above my bench that has been there 11 months. What about that handlebar stem I promised earlier this year that never got built ? How about the bike shows I had to miss because I didn't want to interupt my work routine ? Or today....a brilliant blue sky that I didn't hardly bother to look at because I had so much work laid out for the day ? Or the many bike rides I missed because I was building.................Bikes ?!? This line of work demands that one be present and accounted for. A lot of work does but when you are a one-person operation the pressure to be there is substantial. I have no children. I'm not going to ever have children....nobody to continue the insanity I started, my bike framebuilding buisness. The bikes are my children.....hundereds of them. Some day ,maybe thousands -if I keep at it another ten or fifteen years. I had somebody ask me " How do you keep doing the same thing every day ? Don't you ever want to try something else ? " The truth is that it's not the same thing every day....it changes, challenges, infuriates , trancends , evolves , falls apart , redeems , repels , flounders, defeats , reveals , mystifies , becons. If this weren't the case , a lot less people would want to try it. Once tried , the test will go on and on and one's presence and focus will be the difference between being on the outside or being immersed in the craft . It isn't about arriving somewhere or attaining something-it's about maintaining something. Its work-it goes on only as long as you are willing to be there.

Long time subscriber, first time caller

Every day I, like my brethren go to my shop and do my best to try and build bikes that fulfill what the customer asked for. Of course, it is impossible to make everyone happy who comes in your door for your services but we as builders always seem to try, as if we thought it was possible. So why do we do this ? What personality defect makes us so blind to think that we alone are the final destination for this and any customer , regardless of what they want ? Is it the thought that maybe nothing is beyond our capeabilities as builders ? Is it because we are wanting to have a perfect failure-free 100% customer satisfaction record ? I think not.....it's probably more the fear of failure on the part of the customer and worse, the success of a competitor with the very same customer. So.....when we do fail and get called into question by the customer , why do we get overly defensive ? Why do we forget that it isn't possible to make everyone happy and to go through life without making a mistake or without occsionally pissing someone off ? Again, I think it goes to the personality type that chooses to do this for a living. I recently had an email exchange with a guy who had dealings with several framebuilders as a customer and on the forums. This guys assesment of framebuilders was that they were premadonnas for the most part and if I had had the same experiences as he, it is likely I would have come tothe same conclusion. That said, some of the builders he referred to are top-notch supreme craftsmen and have built amazing stuff over the years. I guess what I'm puzzled by is why most of us get so incredlbly defensive when someone dosen't find us to be as complete and flawless as we want to be ? How come we can't remember something as simple as " You can't please all the people all the time"? What is it that re-enforces our collective insecurities and unrealistic self images ? Is it the fumes from the flux ? Was it how we were raised ? Is it a part of our makeup that also happens to point us in the direction of building bicycle frames ? It is almost as if some of us-actually a lot of us are like feudal lords in really tiny castles , defending ourselves pathetically-I know, it's real stretch of an image but think of each builder as a separate'Kingdom" with its own philosophy, its own set of ethics that must be defended to the death. Builder "A" had a customer who waited X amount of months for a frame and then declared that it wasn't what he wanted, got a refund and then went to builder "B" and had a positive experience. Builder "A" was of course convinced that this customer was in error and that builder"B" was and is a hack. If it sounds like I have experience with this , I do. I have been both builder 'A" and builder "B". I would like to be neither for the duration of my career and try to keep the neuroses at bay-we all need to in my opinion because if we don't, every one of our customers will be going to the large companies for their bicycles....you see, the large companies don't get into the petty stuff that framebuilders do-they just take your money and that is that.

They will find you.

I'm a lucky guy. I have a buisness that I created and struggled with for many years and now it actually seems to be a for real livelyhood. I support myself by building bicycle frames.....just me in my shop with my crazy music blaring all day long, building bicycle frames. It's almost as if I got a pass on the whole growing up into an adult and getting a job thing. I'm still living as if I were and adolescent......maybe a bit more regimented but still like a teenager in a lot of regards. For this privalege I owe my customers a debt of gratitude for making my lifestyle possible. People getting in touch with me to order bikes from all over the world is still something I wonder at and don't fully comprehend. I just keep building 'em if people keep wanting 'em. That said , there are times when I'm found by a person who might not be somebody I can make happy with what I do. I figure that in most cases my website info and reputation will filter out all who might wind up regretting their decision to entrust me with the job of making their rolling dream a reality. Sometimes on the phone or even in an email I will get the sense that the person inquiring might be someone who should shop elsewhere. I have had several instances where I have had to refund a deposit or even buy a frame back from a dissatisfied client. I like to avoid these situations but sometimes I'm blindsided by a person who's motivation for the famebuider-customer relationship might be considered off the beaten path. These folks are what I would call " Psychotic". This is of course a very strong word and I can count the people who merit the description on one hand for my entire career. All the same, these few folks have taught me the most about what I should and shouldn't promise when talking about frames to anyone. About a decade ago I built a frame for a person who was very set on using some hardware on his frame that I was not familiar with. I assured him that what I normally used was superior and that I would build a better frame with what was familiar to me. This did not deter the customer....he wanted his dropouts and other fittings just so. I ordered the stuff requested and had a miserable time building the frame. The end result was not up to my normal standards but the bike was and still is a rideable racing bike. I sent the customer the frame and waited for his opinion on the work and for my payment. I got an email stating that the frame was not what he wanted and he immediately requested that I start on another one. I asked for him to send the frame back and offered to pay the shipping and refund his deposit ( I had not been paid the balance ) to which he replied angrily that I was dropping the ball in the middle of the project. I replied that I had done what he requested with the materials he specified to the best of my ability and was not going to chance having him reject another frame. He was livid but sent back the frame. I sent him his money immediatelty.....this actually impressed him. What I learned is that in rare cases there are a few folks who want the process of interaction with the builder but probably don't want the actual frame at all. What they want is for people like me to keep trying to make them happy while they keep either changing their minds or just become abusive. It's kind of a patrician-servant relationship.......they need to be catered to in ways unrelated to bicycles,riding or anything of that nature. I do not fully understand the motivation for this need and do not feel qualified to fulfill it. Not only that, I really should be building bikes for folks who will ride them , not argue about a file mark in a stainless steel dropout. Do I admit to failing these rare people ? Yes, by all means. Do I intend to get more in touch with their needs as customers ? No F-ing way. As Joe Walsh said ; " You can't argue with a sick mind ".

The birth of single speed mountian biking ?

I wrote this story for a friend so I thought I would bore the rest of the world.....or at least the part that looks at this blog with the history of the dawn of the single-speed mountian bike.....err......something like that. Way back in 1985-86 I was a part time framebuilder mostly building fillet-brazed mountain bike frames, forks and stems as that's what people were asking for. One thing I learned early on ,in this buisness you need to build stuff that people want or they will get it somewhere else and you'll be a non-framebuilder in a hurry. Fortunately I liked building mountian bikes and enjoyed the riding part, once I figured out how to not crash every time I went out on a ride. My impression of mountain biking initially was that it was chaotic , irreverent and a real contrast to the staid and uptight world of road racing. I also was thinking about the clatter that the bikes made over the rough terrain and the complexity of the primitive gear shifiting setup. Another thing I noticed was that the bikes were heavy and not all that quick on the climbs. I got it in my head that a single speed mountian bike might solve some of these issues...it would be quiet with no chain-slap , it would be lighter without the derailleurs, shifters, triple crank, etc. The only thing holding me back from building such a bike was money and time. In early 1987 I was talking to a guy named John Miller about my single speed project and to my surprise he said that he would order one if the price were right-not only that, he would race it ( cruise-class actually did exist then, even though specific bikes for the class appearantly didn't)and represent Rock Lobster and my tiny one-car garage frame buisness. Now that I had an actual order I went to work and in a few weeks , single speed # 1 was completed. To help the bike have a quick feel I used a 24" rear wheel with a light rolled-down road rim from Keith Bontrager. I stayed with the 26" up front so that the bike would roll over rough stuff like a normal mountain bike. The frame had a wishbone seatstay, my first ever. I gave it a spin and realized that I had built something that you could really haul ass on, if you had the legs to turn the gear on the climbs. John Miller had the legs and went on to win almost every cruiser-class race he entered. John told me that the bike was a definite advantage and that nobody had anything like it at any of the races he went to. At the end of the season John decided to stop racing. I asked him what was I going to do now that i had lost my factory rider. He told me to build a bike, get in shape and race. I had never done a mountian bike race and had never intended to but this challenge sounded like just the thing to get me on a single speed......my vision of simpicity in the dirt. I did build the bike and I spent six weeks training on it for my first race. I noticed that I was able to really fly up short climbs on the bike and the lack of clatter made me feel more confident on the downhills. I ventured up to North Lake Tahoe for the T.N.T. race, an event that had a criuser-class catagory. There were 270-plus racers there but only six in the cruiser class. I decided to start in the back and avoid any chance of an early crash. I rode along and after the dustcloud of the mass start thinned I saw that I was passing a single speeder. A little later I passed a couple more. Before the top of the big climb of the race I passed one more and realized that I was in second place with a chance to win. I went all out to try to catch the front runner. When I crossed the line I was a little disappointed thinking that I had not won when a friend of mine told me that I had. As it turns out, the leader might have made a pit stop somewhere and I passed him without knowing. At that point I really thought that single speeding in the dirt was destined to become a big sport. In 1988 it was almost unknown and for the most part considered insane. It took another four years for single speeding to catch on ,but it did. I don't know if the John Miller bike was the first actual race-specific mountian bike ever built but it was the first around here . After my win in the T.N.T. I decided to quit racing and be an undefeated single speeder as long as I could.I was fully aware that my win was a fluke , not likely to be repeated ,especially if actual talented atheletes got the idea to race single speed. I continue to ride single speed in the dirt as it was and is what I hoped it would be-fast, quiet and simple.

Be careful what you don't ask for...

I think most bicycle framebuilders are folks that felt a strong desire to pursue the craft , as if it was the thing they most wanted out of life. I wasn't one of those-maybe for the first few weeks but after the reality of how hard it would be to earn a living at it sunk in , I was pretty much a hobbyist for the next nine years. I even quit for a time when my girlfriend at the time broke up with me and ordered me and my torch out of the apartment forever. I moved to a place where there was no room for a shop so all of my tools went into storage for nearly two years . I had only built about eleven frames so I was still in the beginner stage and blundering my way through for the most part. Little did I know back then what would later be my daily duty for the bulk of my working life. I would like to think that my motivation to build bikes was steadfast and unwavering since the start but I admit that I got discouraged and it fell from the top of my list as a job I could endure. Now that I have been at it fulltime for over twenty-one years , I have come to the conclusion that I always had what it takes to be a framebuilder , not that I am proud of the fact. What I see as necessary components for a potential career framebuilder are the following : # 1, A love of bicycles and riding bicycles , even if you can't ride for one reason or another. # 2, an inability to work for anyone else in any capacity other than framebuilding.# 3, A healthy dose of low self-esteem and need to make folks happy with what you can build so you can get kudos and not feel so absolutely loathsome of yourself for a minute or two.#4 , Some not-so-buried wishes to prove to people in your past that you could indeed amount to something-essentially put it back in thier faces , all those doubters.....pretty much everyone in your highschool. #5 , A need to confront an inanimate pile of metal and turn it into an elegant machine-this comes from your inability to deal with society and social situations comfortably. #6, The desire to have a job that not only skirts the need to conform to adulthood, it literally prevents the transiton. So........what I am saying is that to be a framebuilder needs to be an outcast , a bit of a psychological sicko , incapeable of earning a living in a more conventional profession , and last but not least-immature,insecure and for the most part an emotional house of cards. With these traits it is no surprise why a lot of us do not see eye to eye on what we do and get in to stupid little arguments about details that most people wouldn't even waste a fart on. And so it is, my profession-not what I chose in the beginning but I choose it now , after all....I'm fully qualified.