For as long as I can remember, I've considered framebuilding a creative process. Indeed it's also one that can be tied to production methods, and quotas, and price points. It’s a lot easier to reconcile the business side of things now than when my life was one big...

One day after about thirty years of living with a color, I woke up and decided to walk away. The red and white Richard Sachs paint scheme, selected almost by accident when I had to match bicycles I was making for my racing team - matching them to clothing already...

Okay, first a little background. We spend about a week sweating the Richard Sachs downtube logo. Shaved some Cs, redrew some Ss and flattopped some As. In the end, we found ourselves yawning a bit and gravitating back toward straight up Neutraface like we used in the...

“For the past few years I’ve been inspired by, and guided by the idea of a handshake. The simple gesture of two humans joining hands together can be the beginning of so much. The handshake is at its root a gesture of possibility. With this gesture in mind I knew two...

I was just pointed to a post that describes events at @gocrossrace. I'm disgusted by what I read. Heckling is a fairly recent phenomenon in cyclocross, that is if you take the long view. How it entered the room and why it's accepted has puzzled me for more than a...

You entered the room with nothing. So, you watch and then do what you’re told. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll learn one small thing. When it’s your turn, you mimic what you saw, because that’s all you know. If you stand around long enough, you’ll mimic what you like....

that wasn’t as much fun as i planned for. a three hour ride across the river turned into a combination climbfest trafficfest. the bridge at goodspeed landing had more vehicles backed up in every direction (there are seven of them) than i’ve ever seen since arriving in...

all my skin has shed. bicycle racer mind has left the building. in a timeframe slightly less than two years, i’ve transitioned into a regular guy. no more do i think about having a lithe body. or obsess about how i can shift gears while standing, and with such elan...

When I started my label I knew nothing more than I couldn’t be in the same room with others, despite the Witcomb USA years being full of fun. I cherish the memories and experiences just as I do my time at Witcomb Lightweight Cycles in London where all this began as...

It started out as a two hour Mosey Ride™ and was one until I took a left onto Hill Road in Otter Cove. I’ve ridden all over the River Valley since 1973 and have never seen this turn. It should be called The Aptly Named Hill Road but maybe that’s asking too much of the...

pain is not touching my bicycle for five days and then doing my three hour ride in three hours joy is not touching my bicycle for five days and then doing my three hour ride in three hours All This By Hand .

On Saturday a bunch of friends did Bike Guy’s birthday ride. Once a year Bill Humphreys summons us to Rogers Lake to pedal his age in kilometers, go for a swim, and reminisce. Bike Guy is one of the original Raleigh Boys, the once Century Road Club of America team...

brian wilson has his room. i have my bench. where i feel whole and protected. untouched by the noise. everyone needs wants a safe haven. this bench is mine. All This By Hand .

Secret societies. Fraternal orders. Self-selected cadres. Brotherhoods. Sisterhoods. These organizations need not be necessarily dark, illicit, political, or even rigid. But for them to survive and endure, members have to work as a unit and with complete selflessness....

my first rain ride of 2021 two hours a delightful mix of water from the heavens and the sweat my body makes from trying to ride as fast as i can while playing pretend that i’m in some winning break in a race of some renown all so that little kid feeling in me can come...

it’s one ride whether i’m on this thing or not. long or short, it’s the same ride. and no matter how many times i lift this thing up and point it forward i never leave and i never get there. All This By Hand .

So in 1979 I spent a lot of money trying to bolster my then plummeting self-esteem because it appeared to me that the trade was tooling up to beat the band and every European maker of any size or stature had a lot of fancy, heavy, big tools all over their shop floors...

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” ~ Coco Chanel . The B.I.F.I.™ dropout. .

The word, deadline, has a special meaning in framebuilding. And while I didn't plan my career or even foresee the little corner of the world I'd end up in, I knew that if I did stay in the trade - if I had to do this for money - I was going to learn from the best....

Despite having been abroad and with the experiences that come with working in a small production shop for almost a year, I consider myself a maker with no real pedigree. The time in London was beyond enjoyable, and I did learn some. But I didn’t leave with many tools...

in my day three words i never thought i’d use when i started using them i never thought i’d use them so much they live in thought bubbles i’m too polite (i was raised well) to say them aloud or summon them up to defend the corner i stand on i have many thought bubbles...

i spent a lot of years looking across the way only because there was nothing on my side. well. that's not entirely true. i had a gig. a brand. people waiting. riders winning. what was missing was a surety. a thing i could attach myself too that convinced me i could...

With time, and of course repetition, it’s clear that there are absolutes when you’re a maker. In frame building, one has to know what goes where. The rider’s feet, hands, and tushy for example. There’s only one place above the bicycle they connect so that the position...

I do all this work and the lot of it begins as a pile of metal. Some tools are on the side. Some abrasives. A couple of benches. Maybe if I’m guessing right, some three odd tons of fixtures. And my experience. And the client. And his deposit check. And patience. From...

I spent some 18 years at the bench, a bench, wondering where up was. Ya I was in England for a spell at the front end but at my core I’m self-taught. And with that comes the anxieties and psychosis of wondering if, no when, I’ll be exposed as a fraud. Almost two...

“Once, when visiting Patek Phillipe in Geneva, perhaps the best watchmaking firm in the world, one of the most senior watchmakers showed me the inside of the movement of a particularly lovely Patek on which he had worked for several months. It was beautifully...

A hundred and forty minutes and I’m shot. The temps did me in even though I wore thermals. And the bicycle. It might be time to lube something. Or put it on the lift. It’s making a noise. Or is it me? I missed three days this week too. And with my attitude that’s like...

not old school or pre-school grad school All This By Hand .

not old school pre-school All This By Hand .

So, in 1991 I read an article in the New York Times about Paul Laubin and his oboes. The story was so compelling that I clipped it, come back to it often, and have used it for inspiration ever since. It centered around his small eponymous second generation business...

this is simple but not easy and it's when a man even a god fearing man turns to prayer according to my opinion All This By Hand .

Needing some air, he went into the garden. ‘Ah, look at the afternoon light,’ he said, for shadows were forming dark zones in the pasture recesses, as they do in his masterpiece, ‘The Mountain.’ He went over to a small shed in the corner of the garden, the back wall...

transitioning a lug. there are tools. the materials. and you. as with any detail on the frame as well as on the frame itself, it's a collaboration. you grab a willing partner and think about the end. you get there by walking a path. on it there's touching. agreeing....

more process shots. these are the three frame lugs with the edges profiled to match the tune in my head. i came up in a system when all frames had lugs, and all lugs required the human touch before anything could be fixtured, brazed, or finished. i'm glad that's in my...

here are some early process shots as i set up the tools for the old time-y frame i'm gonna make. the client wants it merckx era correct. that's when i started walking this path. i have all the components still from when every bicycle was made using these materials or...

and then there are the days when three hours seems like a lunch ride. or a run to the post office. or the hardware store. why are some rides so easy so damn efficient so free from worrying about the cog i’m in while others are all second guessing ‘n shit. a rhetorical...