Because there's this recurring situation in which I explain what I do and can't articulate enough for the underexperienced or the lay person and find myself drifting into the abstract, knowing full well what I'm talking about while also knowing full well that the...

Ya to be clear, I've said a lot of things and opined regularly since 1997. Before that I never said boo to anyone about anything. But that's another story according to my opinion. Thing is, I'd take none of it back. In some instances, I wish I’d waited longer to say...

here's a scan of notebook one page one - i found two of these because iirc i started it over when i realized composition books would last longer than spiral bound pads. at some point i must have transcribed all of it over. the notes show the specs of the first-ever RS...

There’s this moment I fixate on. The apprentices are scurrying around trying to prove their worth. Showing they’ve paid attention. One of them might be next. One of them will be next. The camera pans back and we see more. The voiceover, courtesy of José Ferrer,...

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with lugs. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Sinyard? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Nervex, and you curse the silver brazers. You have that...

because without this it’s a unicycle™ All This By Hand .

When I do these slots I lay some removable drywall tape in place and start wailing away with the hacksaw. Well. Maybe it's one stroke at a time. So it’s not really wailing. To do the opposing side of the crown, I take the same piece of tape and invert it so that I'm...

notes to self circa 1971 All This By Hand .

in searching for some details on an old frame, i found the page in the composition book that contained the serial number. by a process of deduction, i matched it with some orders at the top of the page shown here. the edges might be torn away but the specs, such as...

After a decade at the workbench, nothing in my trade inspired me. By the early 1980s, I was already restless and bored. Then I saw a film on a local PBS affiliate about a luthier. It was called The New Yorker Special, Handcrafting a Guitar. The storyline chronicles...

When I first held a bottom bracket shell in my hand, it was a seriously crude piece of work by today’s standards. Though the areas meant for business (the pockets for the tubes and stays, the threads and faces for the bearing units) were well-machined, the tasks of...

Here is an image from a collection taken for a brochure printed in the middle 1980s. It shows me and my Bike Machinery Braze-on-Mobile. They didn’t call it that, I did. For a brief moment in time, the only thing I wanted more than the ability it took to be a better...

The most important part of what I do isn't what I give to a client after some 3-4 days at the workbench. It's not the design. Or the personal service. Or the paint. But without the paint I may second guess some of my opinions. I'm lucky. JB and I have been a couple...

Back at the bench. The next commission was started last year. Friday. Here I am. Sunday. So many orders and names and piles of material. They run together. They all know each other. Each off-cut of metal from one start remembers the leftover abrasives used decades...

I've never worked for anyone. Or for myself for that matter. These commissions all of them, they were just me staring at metal and hand-tools. That certain wonder about how to stand still long enough, and with the right posture. Yeah. People wrote checks and filled...

I don’t remember feeling anything but alone, and different. Forget the crooked lines that connect some of my dots. We all have these. It’s inside that I wonder what normal is. Is it the ability to filter out friction, and anything I disagree with? I take strength from...

The Peddie School motto is Finimus Pariter Renovamusque Labores. We finish our labors to begin them anew. That's gold, Jerry. Gold. But how many times do we end only to start again? Is it measured in units? Years? I wonder about these things. TLD™ (my wife, the lovely...

The fork crown. I don’t know the origin of the term, but what a beautiful term it is. In Italian - ”testa forcella.” Che bella! In its simplest description, an area of metal onto which the fork blades and steering column are joined during the assembly process to yield...

people who make things by hand are often obsessed with the work. but not so much to complete the task and hand over the object as much as to pick up the parts, swing the tools, and figure out the puzzle. and then to recreate it. again. All This By Hand .

this picture was clearly taken before labor day. or maybe when i was still waiting tables at camp dunmore in salisbury, vermont. i’m very happy with myself that much is clear from my stance. my thought bubble (not showing here) says, “can’t touch this.” mc hammer...

my time as a sixty something includes another 14 months, plus or minus. at some point i decided this decade would be spent feng shui-ing my life (so far.) i view this 10 year period as my time to arrange all the disorder (until now) and ready for that proverbial forth...

the sport makes the rules we abide by them don't like them get em changed or don't line up let the athletes play don't hassle them or anyone let the athletes play .

When I comment, it’s my opinion attached to my name. Unlike nearly every troll in so many social media conversations, I’m not hiding behind a stage name, a screen name, an adjective, or a hieroglyphic. And I don’t/won’t take seriously any replies from folks too weak...

There comes a moment in every maker's daily work when the anxiety level rises to the point of screaming. These might be the words: "What do I have to do to get to the next level?" After ten years at the bench, my thought bubbles included these. After twenty years, my...

On the last night of our RSCX 2021 season (Elite Natz at noonish tomorrow) I say thank you to our group. Ours isn’t really a team. Or a club. More than anything, I suppose we’re more a band. A troupe. Family. I wasn’t sure what might be left after 2019. We had no...

RSCX is proud to announce that Taylor Kuyk-White won the National Cyclocross Championship today in the 35-39 category. Thank you to all our sponsors, industry suppliers, friends, and followers. We appreciate your support. Every ride we do includes you. .

I was proud (and thrilled) to be included in Bespoke, the 2009 show held at The Museum of Arts and Design. These books were published in tandem with the event. In all the years since I've looked through my copy less and less. But when I do, all of the excitement comes...

TLD and I (and Buddy, and little Spencer before him) have gone to a mother lode of races off and on pavement but mostly CX because that’s where fate dropped us off. With another season just weeks from its last weekend event, we wish you all the best. Happy holidays if...

“Young chefs try to cross bridges much earlier than they should simply to be different, famous, or new.” ~ Francis Mallmann All This By Hand .

Possibly the quietest corner in my studio. Less than two feet from the bench I stand at all day. And a mile away. To the right is where chaos shows me who's boss. Where the bicycles are made. Where I do my best to listen as materials and dimensions overrule almost...

“I think that in the sexual act, as delightful as it can be, the very physical part of it is, yes, a hammering away. So it has a certain brutality.” -- Louise Berliawsky Nevelson All This By Hand .

The 18th RS labeled frame, made in summer 1975. Restored by @paeng_nepomuceno and now owned by Mike Orbea whose photograph this is. . All This By Hand .

My Bobbe. Four years ago today at 1:37 in the afternoon, she went to Heaven. And nothing has been the same since. Bobbe made me. Taught me. Shaped me. She was my mother and my friend. A single parent and an only child, this was us. My head understands that life comes...

I like order I crave order I live a life of disorder. Deb calls it walking entropy. Deb is right. Deb knows stuff. There's the vision I have. And then there's real. The closer I get, the further it moves from me. The order, that is. That's why I arrange disorder. I...

Rose Mary Woods to the white courtesy phone please. All This By Hand .

So much going on here. No materials. The dark. The light. Shadows. Tubes and lugs and drill bits and bits of A.O. cloth and a design and a client for that design and a willingness to pay for that design come soon, and then I arrive - and when all of this shares the...