Why buy a frame from a one-man shop still using traditional hand-building methods? Because technology alone is a poor substitute for experience.

I didn’t want to be a bicycle maker. I became a bicycle maker.

Through a series of open windows, multiple choice questions, and roads that had more turns than I can count, I was pulled. Dragged over sills into new rooms. Guessed at answers. Missed some right turns. It’s been called serendipity. But it’s my life.

Nothing was planned. I wasn’t trained. I didn’t have a vision for the perfect place to land. I landed here. The here has changed many times in almost 5 decades, but that bench I lean on daily is constant.

Bicycles are toys. Vehicles. Transportation. Tools for sport. Just tools. They can be utilitarian. Or crafted. Bicycles can be androgynous and without soul. Or they can be so full of life and energy that you can’t look away. I make these bicycles.

It took me many years of making, and looking around, of introspection, of self-doubt, and of being detached before I could walk to my bench daily and say to myself, I am good, I am beyond good.

Making is a conversation. A collaboration. A path. Training and experience be damned. It’s the same for good design and workmanship. These are only parts of the equation. There’s also the materials, as well as the tools I hold.

Making is a compromise between the ideal you hold and the parts you use. Everyone speaks. My role is to tame the beast, that stuff on my bench. There are the days when the metal tells you what it wants to be. And all you can do is take the ride. But the material does talk to you. And you have to listen.

For 45 years I’ve listened. The conversation will continue. Some day, the material may hear me too.

Why buy a frame from a one-man shop still using traditional hand-building methods? Because technology alone is a poor substitute for experience.

I didn’t want to be a bicycle maker. I became a bicycle maker.

Through a series of open windows, multiple choice questions, and roads that had more turns than I can count, I was pulled. Dragged over sills into new rooms. Guessed at answers. Missed some right turns. It’s been called serendipity. But it’s my life.

Nothing was planned. I wasn’t trained. I didn’t have a vision for the perfect place to land. I landed here. The here has changed many times in almost 5 decades, but that bench I lean on daily is constant.

Bicycles are toys. Vehicles. Transportation. Tools for sport. Just tools. They can be utilitarian. Or crafted. Bicycles can be androgynous and without soul. Or they can be so full of life and energy that you can’t look away. I make these bicycles.

It took me many years of making, and looking around, of introspection, of self-doubt, and of being detached before I could walk to my bench daily and say to myself, I am good, I am beyond good.

Making is a conversation. A collaboration. A path. Training and experience be damned. It’s the same for good design and workmanship. These are only parts of the equation. There’s also the materials, as well as the tools I hold.

Making is a compromise between the ideal you hold and the parts you use. Everyone speaks. My role is to tame the beast, that stuff on my bench. There are the days when the metal tells you what it wants to be. And all you can do is take the ride. But the material does talk to you. And you have to listen.

For 45 years I’ve listened. The conversation will continue. Some day, the material may hear me too.