Richard Sachs, the grand master of American framebuilding, who has been building bicycles for five decades, is reluctant to call his work art. Instead, he sees bicycles as appliances and views his craft as a trade, dismissing framebuilders who discuss self-expression as “self-indulgent.” Sachs says he finds no inspiration within the bike industry, calling it “kind of staid and boring.”
But when he pivots to where he does find inspiration, the contours of what makes Sachs and his frames interesting come into focus. He discusses The Soul of a Tree, the memoir of George Nakashima, and how the midcentury furniture maker was utterly attuned to his materials. Sachs extols the work of watchmaker Philippe Dufour, who produces every part of his watches by hand and is obsessive about the smallest details. And he admits that when he’s in a rut, he rewatches Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the 2011 documentary about an eighty-five-year-old sushi master who remains singularly focused on the pursuit of perfection.
Sachs didn’t set out to build bikes. He applied to become an apprentice in England in the early 1970s after his attempts to get a writing job failed. He sent about thirty letters asking “to observe and be a gopher” to English bikebuilders and received only one yes, from Witcomb in South London. This changed the arc of his life. Sachs came back to the States and in 1975 opened his own business in Connecticut. Since then, he has handcrafted thousands of lugged steel bicycles.
In interviews, Sachs often acknowledges that mass-produced modern race bikes are of very high quality. “They may all look the same, like they popped out of a waffle iron, but they are well designed and proven in top races,” he says. But still, he expresses sadness about how the digital age and global economy have altered how bicycles are made. “Now someone models an art file and sends it to Asia, and a final thing gets shipped back in a container.”
The grand master understands why customers pay thousands and wait years for a Richard Sachs frameset—not for the bike so much as for what went into the bike. “I have a relationship with my materials and tools,” he says. “It is an art to take a pile of materials and use tools to transform it into something functional and beautiful.”
An already heavy conversation gets weightier when I ask Sachs about Dario Pegoretti (see page 177). The two men were friends and collaborators for decades. On paper, they seemed different—Pegoretti could be flamboyant and made bikes with wild paint jobs, while Sachs crafts meticulous lugged frames—but they shared an uncompromising dedication to the pursuit of excellence and a mastery of geometry and metal. “Dario was the only one who truly understood me,” Sachs says.
So Sachs pushes on alone, still wrestling to understand the meaning of his devotion to his craft while obsessively seeking communion with it. “It’s like surfing,” Sachs says with a laugh. “I’m always out there, looking for the next wave.”
Words by Peter Flax from his book, Live to Ride: Finding Joy and Meaning on a Bicycle.
Publication date March 19, 2024
Available here.