I’m gonna build a bike with a rack big enough to portage away your whole savings account.
/agree
That’s a very, very small rack.
[quote]By contrast, the pursuit of art is a conscious avoidance of work in the traditional sense–
Muse. Brancusi postcards tacked to the wall. Inspiration. Radiohead turned up to 11.[/quote]
what in the fuck?
WTMFH I see noob builders charging $800 for framesets. How the fuck is that 80% the price of a Sachs? Sure, there are new dudes, sure, a lot of them suck, but that article is just so much whinging about the “good old days”. The last time I checked, you couldn’t even order a Sachs.
Also, I laughed when I saw this on CC.
Two years too late.
Also:
Competitive Cyclist - By Douchebags, For Douchebags
i’m torn. I like making things with my hands and i like bikes so i began messing with framebuilding.
however in portland it’s the equivalent to the Art Institute, full of snobby new guys in rapha gear. the “scene” is just them sucking eachother off. i’m over it.
actually i’m over any bike related enterprise. i know of people here who are delivering christmas trees by bike.
maybe i just hate portland to be exact.
I like Competitive Cyclist and even concur with their general point, but goddamn the logical fallacies. Their supporting evidence is shit.
Dudes like Jonny Cycles were charging half as much as what Sachs was charging when he was still taking orders and putting in two or three times the labor for aesthetic appeal (polished lugs, etc). He quickly learned that it wouldn’t pay his bills. The new dudes are going to come and quite a few of 'em are going to not be able to make a living because there’s a lot more to running a business than what can be taught during the week at UBI. In any case, it’s not going to harm the industry and we’re going to seem some awful/attractive stuff in the process.
If all the guys just copied Vanilla, I’d be ok with that.
well i don’t think anyone is getting pushed out. And if there were it’s not because new guy were undercutting them it’s coz the old school was charging more than the market could bear.
Anyone with the brains to order a custom bike knows theres a large difference between an Ahearne (which I really like personally) and a Vanilla.
I just hate seeing things like this get co-opted and commercialized. pretty soon there will be urban oufitters ads with handsome models building frames.
you can quote me on that.
i completely disagree. remember the hufnagel that turned up for sale on PDXfix like a week after the dude got it? fucking laughable.
Fools and their money.
Bikes are booming again (I think?) and the appreciation for handmade/exclusivity/whatever is high. It’s too bad there isn’t more handmade, made in the USA stuff in that magical $800 price point, and I’m sure there are plenty of up-and-comers who would be stoked to get that much for a frame. But can you really afford to live in a place like Portland (which isn’t especially cheap, though it’s not San Francisco or New York expensive either) and get by for very long doing $800 frames? I dunno… haven’t tried it. But if you can get $1500 for the same amount of work, and people are into the aesthetic/whatever, then why the fuck not? Capitalism, babby.
you know the logical counterpoint to that is who gives a shit about asthetic appeal on a race bike…which is what sachs builds. i might be a dummy but if i’m dropping big monies on a frame i’m going to someone that has a shitload of experience…thinkin’ kellogg, davidson, nobilette, kvale, yamaguchi, so on and so forth…
also, just coz sachs doesn’t usually polish up shit like some guys doesn’t mean he can’t do the asthetic shit too.
notice the brass on the long points top and bottom.
most importantly though, you get all his experience over the years built into your frame (if ya had the chance to get on the wait list). the demand is more than just good marketing…but some of it IS good marketing.
was gonna make a thread about this
[quote=atmo]there never were any to speak of atmo. the term is misused to the nines.
and the reason we have what we have now is because of the internet, and
the fantasy that comes when looking over the electronic fence and trying
to approriate a career when one has zeal but no training. framebuilding has
always (999999.9 percent, that is) been about folks wanting to do better,
or finer, or with less restrictions, or fewer managers, or simply wanting to
tell the conventional market and industry to get the eff outa’ my face. most
cats, at least at the front end, got sick the eff of the routine of the workplace
and left. what they began with was an experience level, some connections,
and a fresh attitude - and were now their own boss. but most importantly,
they all had been through the work stations, and the repetitive drills, and all
things in between. they didn’t learn the basics in year one of their eponymous
(i LOVE that word) firm’s existence. they didn’t start a business with 20 frames
under their belt. shut me up already. and they knew how to make frames, period.
they simply made them for themselves now rather than for the man.
these are different times atmo. industrial frames in the last 20 years have
become so incredibly well designed and made that any need for a trip to
a frame shop is not for the same reason it may have been a generation
or so prior. in the pre-MTB era, it was unthinkable to get a good bicycle
for racing from the rank and file LBS because most of them (the bicycles)
sucked. over the course of 20 or so years, while all of that did a 180, the
number of folks building frames suffered as a result. many simply vaporized
atmo. the newer crop, those from the internet and forum era, have another
calling altogether. most have built and incredibly small number of frames,
either before they went commercial, or since. the business they are in is
a unique model. actually, i don’t know what it is. no matter.
some of us do what we can to plant seeds and nurture a few bright lights.
i believe the door is slamming shut on the number of folks that can pull off
the “…handcrafted frame” in this era and still make a career of it. enthusiasm,
blogs, picture pages, and the like can only sustain so much atmo. i often
make analogies to latin; an interesting language with some special needs
that demand a grasp of it. framebuilding is not unlike that. with the fine
(and getting finer) wares being made en masse, the road to a frame shop
will be narrower and narrower as time passes, and only the best and the
brightest will make the cut. these are different times.[/quote]
less hufnagels, more gaulzettis
[quote=tepr][quote=white folks]
Anyone with the brains to order a custom bike knows theres a large difference between an Ahearne (which I really like personally) and a Vanilla.
[/quote]
i completely disagree. remember the hufnagel that turned up for sale on PDXfix like a week after the dude got it? fucking laughable.[/quote]
whats the deal with the hufnagel? didn’t have enough top tube slope?
fuck overpriced fashion items. ride a spooky.
fuck overpriced fashion items. ride a spooky.[/quote]
I have no idea what a spooky is, but I definitely agree with the first part.
[quote=tarckeemoon]Two years too late.
Also:
Competitive Cyclist - By Douchebags, For Douchebags[/quote]
what’s wrong with cc? they might not carry the entire QBP catalog at a 5% markup but their prices are generally good and they only sell quality wares. their website has a lot of added-value too, i’ve read up on a lot of stuff there. they seem to have a pretty good reputation among people who aren’t douchebags.