Number one

Memorial day weekend arrived and I thought that if I had time, I would attend to finishing a long-delayed project hanging over my bench.Back in June of 1978, or thereabouts I built my first frame. Since it was my very first, there were some real blunders in the building of this opus-one that it never really rode correctly. This did not deter me from riding it for a number of years, even riding a metric century in the sierra foothills-this was no mean feat as my first frame was a track frame and I put stupidly tall gearing on it as well. Fast forward to 1994.....I was having a particularly rough week and my temper was boiling over. I needed to break something in the shop....anything, so long as it wasn't a customer owned item. My old number one was hanging on a hook , all disassembled waiting for the day I would re-build the rear triangle and make it ride the way it should have originally. I took the frame down and got out a large piece of tubing and beat the crap out of the rear triangle . ( those were different days....primitive times of high frustration and long hours) I reasoned that the rear stays would all be replaced anyway, might as well get some good venting in.
Old number one remained in that state until about three months ago when I finally got the paint stripped and redied the frame for repair. I did nothing further on the frame until this particular Memorial day weekend-I made the time on Sunday afternoon and set out to fix this old relic 32 years after I hastily and haphazardly threw it together. As I started work on the frame I became aware that the mistakes that I knew about such as the rear triangle being set too high , lowering the bottom bracket and slackening the angles ( pretty much the opposite one would want for a track bike ) and the fork being built too short were just the beginning of the maladies. When I started building the frame in 1978, the one guy who guided me , Ross Shafer kept telling me : "Paul, you really should do a full-scale drawing first ." -Of course, I was much too anxoius and headstrong to listen.....the result : My first frame was a total piece of shit....rideable, but a real genuine steaming piece. I had put all my energy into the lugs and fork crown, gracefully and ambitiously crafting neat little crest-shaped cutouts everywhere they could possibly fit. I spent six weeks of after work hours cutting, filing, thinking that I was going to make a stunning groundbreaking work of framebuilding genius. What I made was as I said before, a total piece of shit.
Now it is almost 32 years later to the day and I am working on this P.O.S., going about rebuilding the rear-end and putting new dropouts in the fork in an attempt to make this track bike a good riding machine. As I hold the front triangle with it's nicely crafted cutout lugs and old Italian threaded Cinelli/Fischer bottom bracket up to my drawing paper I notice that my lack of planning back in 1978 had created a frame that most likely would never be correct as a track frame. # 1, the BB was too low. # 2, the angles were too slack,even when the rear triangle was re-done. # 3, the fork being so short really made getting the BB higher pretty much an impossibility. Faced with this, I pondered throwing the whole mess into the shop dumpster and letting go of old number one forever. At this point I decided to call another builder, a friend who just might get a chuckle out of my predicament . This builder is someone who I regard as one of the top in the field and also someone who can appreciate irony like myself. The builder asked me what my background was before I had built the frame. I told him that I was a fulltime bicycle mechanic with no metalworking skills at all. What I should have said is this: My background.......lousy bike racer, obsessed mechanic, social zero , borderline psychopath...and yes......ignorant asshole who couldn't take the time to do a drawing. I was so focused and obsessed with the artistic part of the frame that I completely dismissed the fundamentals needed for proper bicycle design. This is what created my P.O.S. and it was a waste of materials. But......on this Memorial day weekend I felt that scrapping old # 1 would be an even bigger waste of materials so I spent the afternoon carefully doing what I could to make this bike roll again. I was sure to use old tubing where I could and period-correct dropouts to try to capture the original look. A customer called and told me : " Sure, it will roll again, but don't you think that by repairing it 32 years later you are destroying some of the authenticity ?" I assured the customer that no amount of repair, even with all the skill I have from a couple thousand frames under my belt could change the authenticity of this bike. It is and will always be, a total piece of shit.

Perverse osmosis

Nothing really says you have arrived as a framebuilder more than seeing stuff you built for sale on Craigslist . If you have enough bikes under your belt there's a good chance that your fine craftsmanship will occasionally wind up on the open market-people upgrade, downgrade, sidegrade, go on benders, decide that your bike sucks, lose a job and have to downsize......all sorts of reasons exist for someone to cut loose of the frame you built for them. I guess for me it is a little sad as I would hope that a custom frame is something that one does not sell as it is a very personal purchase. Then again, if your brand has been around long enough there might be some serious resale value available that could come in handy in a time of need. For my esteemed bikes this might not be the case , at least not yet. While I like to state that I attempt to build a very serious racing bike and always strive to make every one better than the last , the market does not care how focused I might think I am . Just yesterday I saw a nearly complete bike on Craigslist for sale.....a track bike-a real genuine velodrome mass-start steel bike that I had built maybe 6-8 years ago. It was missing the front wheel but the rest of it was all there and it looked pretty used but far from used up. A frame nearly Identical to this one had been ridden to a national championship in the Madison. This bike was offered at $ 500. The frame was a 53 cm, not an unpopular size by any stretch of the imagination. A complete bike such as this would cost about $ 3,000 new and here it was , the same bike that was ridden on board tracks across the USA to national titles and many medals for sale at about the price of used fixie from Taiwan. Most likely, this was a frame I built for the junior developement program in Los Gatos, Calif. I built these frames at a greatly reduced rate, about a third what I charge normally as I feel that getting talented juniors on good bikes is a worthy cause. I guess it makes me a little sad to see a bike like this , one that I made for a possible future champion for sale at a really low price that dosen't reflect what kind of effort went into the construction of this machine . This is the reality of a fulltime builder......it's as if these bikes are our children-some of them end up at an ivy league school, others will end up in the street. It isn't up to me.

Us vs. them......

We as bicycle frame builders in order to have buisness need to get exposure for our work-for me it is mostly at the races....for my more artistic brethren the venue is one or more of the various trade shows that showcase custom and/or collectable bicycles. Both avenues are potentially great but both require time and money to participate in and there is no guarantee that sales will result from either venture. The internet serves well as a place to have work displayed and information available to the potential customer but if you are not showing your wares out in the real world, your chances of sales are pretty slim. When the shows as we now know them first started up about five years ago ( the framebuilder exclusive ones...) they were gatherings that for the first time brought builders together in one place and for the most part helped solidify the framebuilder community. This process of celebrating the craft while at the same time re-enforcing the bonds of framebuilding folks was so long overdue , it was like a huge dam of enthusiasm and inspiration had broken open.We , as builders were no longer working in relative isolation. I, personally was moved by the first three shows I displayed at....they served to inspire me in a big way. The show had an unspoken theme, at least in my mind. It was :" Hey, we build frames....check out what we do." Now, just a few years later the show is now several shows....the community is now divided into sub-groups. The enormous size of the country and the increasing costs associated with the original show are the main cause but for me the focus of the original show is what spun me off. Now the handmade bike show can be distilled to this theme .: " Hey, look at what i build....". The "We" part of it is gone, buried under a big pile of one-upsmanship and big gaudy bowling trophies. While I applaud the talent of folks who win awards at the show-you really can't win an award with anything less than exceptional-The thing that still is not awarded for the most part is the commitment that some folks have to the craft, be it what they do for racers, junior developement or mentoring new builders. In my mind, that's what is where the focus needs to be and that is what will keep this craft from dying. No amount of museum quailty adornment will convince the bulk of cyclists that a custom bike is worth seeking out. I'm sticking with " Look at what we do " as the saying for the present and future builders who wish to not see the demise of framebuilding. You can save the " Look at what I do" for your blog.

Selling out......

Back in 1988 when I got my short music career behind me and decided to be fulltime in the frame building craft I didn't have any plan at all. My goal was to try to get better at the job and hopefully have a reliable clientele based on the kind of service I would try to provide. Sure, I had a lot to learn in all respects ( I still do...) but I was a 32 year old with energy, a few tools and a number of frames under my belt. I was not alone in Nor-Cal in those days-a few others were a bit ahead of me in terms of brand name recognition and product offerings. One of my competitors even had a patent or two. Two of these framebuilders would eventually sell their buisnesses and get back some of the money they had invested working hard for really low wages , considering the skills and comittment needed for the job. Both of these builders had done a lot to spread the word of thier brands with t-shirts and small accessories that were perfect for folks who wanted to buy something with the comany logo but couldn't spring for the bike.These two builders had built thier shops into small companies with between 20-30 employees . Not being a big thinker , I had no such accessories, no patents , a small dealer network and no employees. My company had stayed small because I was afraid of losing control of the situation.....also, I really liked the building process itself and didn't want to wind up in an office , away from the set of tasks that were the reason I was in the trade in the first place. Here it is, 2010 and I'm still at it as a sole proprietor in a small shop. I still build the frames myself and as of now have no employees, a small dealer network and seldom have any logo-emblazoned stuff that finds itself into the consumer market. Folks come to the shop and say " Dang, you have to be one of the only guys from the eighties who never sold out or quit .". Yes, it may be true that almost everyone who was building when I started out has ether sold thier companies or quit the buisness. Some might think that it was dedication and commitment that has kept me at it all these years. At one time I used to say that unlike my brethren, my company was not for sale. "You can't sell out if you are not for sale!" The bigger truth is that I never had any offers worth considering-the only one I got was from a German distributor who actually laughed at the paltry sum I was asking for permanent ownership of my trademark for all of Europe . I didn't lower my price as I pretty much figured that the German company was looking to get something for nothing and even though I really could have used the money , I was not willing to give away all those years of labor for chump change . The real truth about selling out is this : " You can't sell out if nobody is buying." So, along with the fact that I like the process , I was unable to cash in back in 1998 when people like Trek were scooping up every cult bike name they could . The money would have been nice but I would have missed all those years since in my shop..........can't put a price on that.

Listen to the pros and the bros.

While I drink my morning tea and eat my daily three pieces of toast at 7:30 a.m. I get a chance to read what framebuilders are discussing...or sometimes arguing about on the forums. That's right-while I'm no longer a part of these scrums I do check them out from a distance. The eternal battle seems to be framebuilders vs. engineers. The framebuilders have actual experience with tubes,lugs,brazing , etc. The way a framebuilder finds out if something dosen't work is if it comes back to the shop broken. The way and engineer finds out if something dosen't work is much the same except for the fact that most engineers do their work in labs and never get to actually build the final product themselves. Framebuilders see this as a disconnect. Engineers see framebuilders as primitives who by the seat of their collective pants put things together in sometimes a haphazard fashion that wouldn't cut it in the world of testing labs. The truth is that egineers and framebuilders benefit from each other and need each other for problem solving and real-world feedback. Where would framebuilders be without the engineers figuring out the best alloys and processes to make tubing ? Conversely, where would engineers be without framebuilders putting the torch to these raw materials and finding out if the engineering really adds up to a success for the end user , or if it falls short. Neither framebuilder nor engineer is immune from making a blunder but each of them are very sure that the other is missing something in the equasion of bicycle building. I read on the forum where a hobbyist-builder was asking if silver solder was better for attatching cantilever bosses than bronze as it melted at a lower temperature. Several experienced builders gave evidence that silver was a bad choice, to which the hobbyist replied : " I'm going to use silver, check the engineering data". Hey, mr. Hobbyist.....you are ignoring the most important data-that of people who braze on hundereds of cantilever bosses , exactly what you are trying to attempt for the first time. While the engineers will tell you properties that are very valuable, the engineers are not actually building the bikes, brazing on the bosses and dealing directly with the results. Think about it-free advice from seasoned pro builders.......years ago when I started out, this advice was almost impossible to come by. While we as builders depend on the engineering community to a large degree it is we, the guys in sheds all over the world who really knows what works in the bike building shop and the advice to " Read the data" from someone with little or no experience is downright laughable. To Mr. "Read the data " I say : Dude, we live the data....hell , our frames are the data . We , as builders accept responsability for failures that could be ours, or could be the data . Maybe you need to check some data of a more real-world kind-Hey, it's free !

Refund ??? Refund ???

Every once in awhile I have had to cut the cord with a customer ( or them with me..). I used to think that maybe this person who ordered a bike frame from me might be mentally unsound or just playing some sort of sick control game with me and possibly other craftspeople types . That's what I thought, until recently. A client/builder relationship is not unlike a friendship-trust is a major part of the relationship. The client must trust that the builder will do his or her utmost to satisfy what the customer ordered. Conversely , the builder must trust that the customer is being clear in what they are requesting and is acting in good faith, i.e. not going to flake on payment when the frame is completed. Both parties are taking a bit of a leap of faith-if either is unsure of the other, that is when the whole exchange can go south. So here it is, years since my last unfortunate aborted transaction with a clearly displeased customer......suddenly it hit me: Maybe this person was not insane...maybe they really weren't playing any kind of sick control game at all. Perhaps the issue with this customer is that they didn't trust me, the builder. Even though it has been a long time coming, this realization about trust ..but now I know why I couldn't satisfy them and also I know why I came away comletely insulted. I would like to think that I, like most of my framebuilding brethren do our utmost to make the customer happy. I also need to point out that when some of us do make an error we do all that we can to rectify the mistake in a timely fashion . While most of us do not advertise that we fix our flub-ups quickly , I believe it is an unspoken code that customer service is what sets us apart from larger companies and/or unethical practitioners of bicycle frame construction ( Names witheld to protect the cheeky bastards ) . Sooo.....here I am, thinking I'm going to build this customer the best frame they ever had and whammo.......the customer isn't happy, sometimes before I have even lit the torch ! I recently sent a deposit back to a customer who I spent quite a bit of time with in person and on the phone-all the time I was talking to this person I got the feeling that he/she was having a terribly hard time commiting to an order or even a design for the frame. I always tell people who appear this indecisive that perhaps they should not order a frame until they know exactly what they want . Now I know that indecision on the part of this customer was only a symptom of the greater issue: This person didn't trust me. Even though the customer clearly did not trust my ability to build what they want in the time they had envisioned , I recieved a deposit from the customer, albeit about three months later than I was told I would. In that three months I had accumulated about thirty orders , so the three and one-half month waiting time I had qouted the customer was out of the question. I phoned and left the customer a message on voicemail that now the frame would not be ready for perhaps four to five months. I gave the customer two weeks to reply as to weather this was acceptable ( if not I would send the deposit check back ) and then deposited the check. In a couple of days the customer called me and said that the check had cleared but that he hadn't given me the o.k. on the additional waiting time. I waited for another couple of weeks and then the custome called to have me refund the deposit, which I did immediately. I also sent back all the fit info so that it could be put to use by the other builder who would now be building the frame that was no longer my responsability. I was seriously scratching my head over this whole episode when it dawned on me that the indecision, the long delay in sending the deposit and the delay in getting back to me with the final solution were the red flags of mistrust on the part of the customer. I can understand that it is a big leap of faith to order a frame from someone you might not know personally but people do it every day . What I don't understand is why someone who clearly didn't trust me sent me money ..........it makes no sense . I'm not a mental health professional and some would say that I could benefit from a little analysis myself - this stuff is beyond me . I close with this : To all those untrusting individuals I say, go ahead -don't trust me.....pass me up as your potential builder, please ! Just remember that unless you are building the damn frame yourself you will indeed have to suck it up and trust somebody . Good night and good luck.

Have a nice time at the show for me.......

Yes, the NAHMBS is almost here and I for one am not going to be there. Don't think that I'm dissing the show.....it is the best of its kind in the known world, it's just that my energies are best spent in the shop rather than out at a show trying to wow people. I may sound like a whiner , mr. sour grapes and all that but the reason I'm not going is because other than seeing all the great work and getting to hang out with some of my favorite folks , it isn't a place where I'm going to write orders, wow people.....there's just too much other 'bling' that I can't compete with. I read on one of the forums about some guy deviding builders into two catagories. One catagory was "boring builders'. These are builders who don't put long stainless steel logos on their downtubes, don't build with ornate shiny bits and might only weld thier boring bikes and powdercoat them one measily color. Hey....that's me ! I'm officially a boring builder. People walk the isles of the show.....walk....hmm, down an aisle....... of bicycles-wait.....bicycles......what about riding the bicycles ? Does anyone do that at the shows ? The only riding I ever did at the show was to transport a bike to the photographer or to the lecture I was giving that day . Nobody rides at these shows. No trophies are awarded to any bike based on the way it rides , yet riding is what bicycles are for ! But noooo....these priceless works of art are to be looked at, worshipped and spared the indignity of being ridden . Often I see bikes that were obviously one-off labors of many hours of concentrated , commited painstaking work-the kind of work that only a hobbyist could find time to do. This pretty much makes the working stiff framebuilder , the guy who makes bikes for people that ride them , a boring framebuilder by the standards of at least some of the viewing public at the show. O.K. , I agree. My bikes will not wow you visually and since you will not be able to ride them at the show, you won't be able to judge that favorably, either. I see the show evolving into something of an exhibit for the obsessed. Hey, the custom bicycle market depends on the obsessed so I heartily endorse their obsessions and am glad the show exists to give builders a venue to display the stuff these people long to see. I can't compete with someone who is willing to put more time into filing one lug than I put into building an entire frame. That said, I don't want to compete with these folks......I willingly concede defeat. What is my concellation prize for losing this battle ? I'll bet you already know that..........