On Wednesday I did the beer run marking the beginning of my 2021 season. Since then I’ve kitted up and done two rides totaling five hours. My observation (so far) is that despite my inflated opinion of myself, while my mind might be that of a 32 year old, my legs...

The season begins. Last March I was doing three hour rides several times a week. This year my bicycle hasn’t moved an inch for at least three months. It rolled forward today. When I say season I don't mean racing. That chapter of my life is done and dusted. I've...

I have this picture of me with my pal. He was eight years older. In the relationship I was the youngster, the student, the little brother. He was the wiser, the more mature, the mentor. I’m now twice his age and then some. And wonder where time goes. And if there’s a...

Too much of my time is spent remembering. What it was like. Where it happened. Who was there. No day passes when I’m not down the rabbit hole. My life could be Midnight in Paris. It is Midnight in Paris. The past is a teacher. My mentor. It guides me. It also gets in...

He's going to end up, on the dirty boulevard He's going out, to the dirty boulevard He's going down, to the dirty boulevard All This By Hand .

Lately, I’ve been so busy, and so distracted, and my attention span has been all over the place – I’ve been so all of this – that I’m not sure where the center is. Is disorder is the new center, and is arranging disorder the ideal? I accept where I am, but wrestle...

On this day, sixty eight years ago, Bobbe made me. And ever since, anything I could do to keep a smile on her face, I did. Two Aquariuses. Likeminded souls. Always ready to see the best in everything and everyone. My mother. My teacher. My muse. My friend. My heart...

My first bicycle. Well, not my first. But my first that was higher than a foot off the ground. It’s an Atala Gran Prix. Bobbe bought it for me from SDS Bicycle Shop on Palisades Avenue. That’s up in The Heights, a section of Jersey City. Story is I didn’t want a...

No one gets to define you except yourself. All This By Hand .

Thank you Jodie. I get this I really get this. I’m a lifelong closeted affirmation addict and, even as recently as yesterday, live in denial. I know the signs, and dance around them. I’m a very good dancer. I can’t say how it started, but it’s likely inseparable from...

and then there are the times we’re talking to ourselves and realize no one’s listening All This By Hand .

In a life that doesn't know the word “routine”, one thing comes close. Sundays. They arrive faster with each passing month. I look forward to them. When the pace is more settled. TLD and I have breakfast together. And in my head, as I do every seventh day, I make...

there are days when the only thing right is how much actual wrong i remove before nothing is left. the days when sideways should be a movie but not about wine but about these days. these days of making when steel and precision fixtures and hand tools laugh out loud....

That was yesterday But today life goes on You won't find me in yesterday's world Now yesterday's gone Goodbye yesterday .

Batch building is in my DNA. My initial exposure to the making process was in a room where men worked. They worked. They didn’t create. Or look for inspiration in order to work. It was a workroom and work was the reason it existed. Not art. No one waited for a muse to...

The lines for what I consider elegant move in all directions. But never backwards. It’s simple. Things have to be designed and made well and without compromise. More than that, they have to look good, mouthwateringly good. Not just now. But until forever. Because...

What I enjoy most, what I've always enjoyed most, is the time after a frame (and fork) has been finished. For all the gaffes and second-guesses that are part of the process, the new morning when another order is about to begin, but nothing yet has happened, and...

Through the years as the industry has decidedly become non-ferrous and placing so much emphasis on industrial-made bicycles, the need for high quality steel tubing and fine lugs to join them with became less and less. By 2000 I was thoroughly disenchanted with the...

This is my bicycle. It hasn't moved an inch in six weeks. But I have. I'm walking again. Most days for two hours. The tracks are down the street. I leave the driveway, make a right turn onto the rails, and head south. In less than ten minutes I'm in the woods....

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...

As a framebuilder whose career began in the ferrous era, I've always had a synergy with lugs. Despite that the industry eventually eschewed steel as a viable material for making bicycle frames en masse, I believe the best are still made with it. I also think the best...

I receive many letters and reply to all of them. This one came in a circuitous way. It was sent to an old address I left in 2008. Over a year ago, the current occupant let me know that this was in the mailbox at 9 North Main Street. It was written in 2018, and sent...

I spend a lot of time wondering. And without an attention span it’s no easy task taking a thought to its exponential end. But I try. And convince myself I have when I haven’t. Faking it is in my blood. Not by intention. It’s a survival mechanism. I’ve pondered away at...

There’s one line to gas and another to oxygen. And two worn out knobs on the side. The tips I use are older than some of the riders on RSCX. Come to think of it, everything on my torch is. I never really learned how to braze. Or was shown. I stood there for months,...

I rarely know which direction I’ll turn when I hit the driveway, much less the destination. I just go, but with an abstract idea of for how long rather than how far. Today I moseyed over to the other side of Guilford, almost to Stony Creek. On the way back I took my...

From darkness comes light. All This By Hand .

leaf stuck in rear brake makes such an annoying sound cycling in autumn All This By Hand .

Some rides are more beautiful than others. But all rides give me time to think. So all rides are beautiful. And on some rides I think more and on some, less. It matters little if I go deep or simply ponder a bit about - say, nothing at all. To ride. To think. This is...

From some 25 years ago when I started supplying road and the CX bicycles to Marka Wise's NECSA U23 and Junior Devo teams. To be fair, none of it might have happened without pal Dave Genest's being part of the family. We painted them purple to delineate (that's a fancy...

Sunday, five hours Did I ride my bicycle Or did it ride me? All This By Hand .

I ride a lot north of here on roads within Cockaponset State Forest and believe I know every turn and rideable surface. I may not have gone down every one, but today decided to ignore one of the many Dead End signs I’ve passed a thousand times since 1973. In Haddam I...

Bidon, dusty floor A watercolor study Two available All This By Hand .

An excerpt from a lovely note received this week from an original and longtime RS client. At 19, this was to be my 'forever' bike. I worked in bike shops all throughout college years, repairing all manner of inferior quality bikes. I wanted this bike to be special,...

Once you develop a routine (as in, what goes where), you become part of the score. In my workroom, I’m a dot connector. The conductor. I know from repetition and routine that the metal I'm holding or the tool on my bench – these have a place in the sound I want to...

It happens each season when the weatherman taps you to remind that this is the week. For me it was last Tuesday. Until then and for as long as I can remember, for as long as I want to remember, it was a pair of bibs and a jersey. The thermals were easy to find....

A couple maybe three weeks ago I posted several times showing a client’s RS painted in colors I first used some forty years ago. Anthracite and champagne. This originated on the Spanish Kas Team frames made by Masi in the early 1970s. Here’s me with one of my own...