Michael Furman and Christopher Koch spent a long weekend with me in my workspace. A place no one sees. Because I work alone. It’s what I’m used to. Michael and his assistant set up the photography. Christopher interviewed me. Then this happened. Almost to the day....

To a pile of tube and lugs, this is what content looks like. No hyperbole. No self-adoration. Or links to other links with links. Real content has meaning. Just enough to fill the empty spaces. And not a word or a phrase extra. And certainly no hashtags. All This By...

All of it revolves around elegance. You want the lugs thinned a bit. Eliminate high and low spots. Make sure the flow is complete from top to bottom from side to side from front to back and that the same intention spreads to each lug so the job is the sum rather than...

I was hooked on racing long before I put my name on a down tube. Lured by the sport’s history in Europe, I found joy in any cycling magazine I could open. Without even knowing that fate would place me in this trade, the needle was in my arm. And stayed. Say what you...

There's a little known side of me that involves tears. The kind that flow from eyes. I cry easily. Ya know - like at the end of the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethons. I cried for most of the film, Miracle. I've seen it often. I even watched the game live in 1980. And...

Bicycle racing is an old sport. It's a pre-war sport. It's a pre-motorsports sport. It's a pre-televised sports sport. It's a workingman's sport. Think boxing. A game run by old and retired former racers whose male-dominated and closed backroom culture have been in...

Here’s an Instagram Story share that began on pal Justin’s page. It’s a screenshot (if I never hear, read, or type that word again it’ll be too soon...) of a note I sent to my pal (I hope) and late 1990s client Steve Frotheringham, he being a highly ranking person at...

A draft of a letter written to W.B. Hurlow regarding a frame I had on order. My first Hurlow arrived in 1971 long before I knew about the trade or became a small part of it by accident. The second frame was delivered to me while I worked at Witcomb Lightweight Cycles...

RS Game Board RS Game Bored next move is mine All This By Hand .

There's a balancing act of chaos when I stand at the bench to make a bicycle frame. The part I love the most is the part after the very beginning. When the pipes are mitered and I'm sure all the interference fits meet a standard. That's when the torch is lit for the...

The Cliff’s Notes - I was in Verona, hanging with Cristina and Pietro and the workers at @dariopegoretti. I couldn't not be there and not order a frame. I told Pietro my saddle height and the reach range I prefer from saddle nose to handlebars. That. Is. All. I didn't...

I don’t carry many lifelong scars. But I’ve never been able to shake this one. My report cards from Yeshiva of Hudson County. Eight years of rigorous Judaic training. It was all I could do to take up the very space I occupied. The Rabbis who stood at the front of...

The line exists, To lure us. To tease us. The days keep coming and the line is never close enough to cross. You see it. Sometimes it’s right there. But you’re always going to be on the same side of it as you are today. The line is always there. And you’re never ever...

When I was 17 I had an Atala Gran Prix. I wondered what the gears were for and how to change them. The technical stuff didn’t matter that much. I pedaled around the neighborhood and Hudson County Park just because. From reading several magazines, I learned that...

It's a visual language, not spoken. I understand it. But never hear it. I know it when I see it. A file in the maker's hand is communication. The tool and the surface it's rubbing up against. To rearrange metal or to blend it seamlessly is a quiet yet deliberate chat...

This bad boy is six weeks old today. I made it last summer, then sent it over to Milano for the #columbuscentoexhibition, then received it back in late January before deciding what to do with it. I didn’t make it so I could have a new bicycle. I’ve been on a CX unit...

Hmmm over 40 years of calling out stuff in the cycling press. Longer, really. I found this gem in the archives (a.k.a. the loft) from 1979. There must be a second page but this is all I have. The editor at Competitive Cycling (Jim McFadden) must have published an...

I didn’t want to get in trouble. I wanted to be troubled. Like those men I used to see at 13th and Third. And across from the Port Authority on Seventh Avenue. And inside the lunch counters in the garment district. Those rooms that were 10’ wide and 90’ deep. One long...

My middle nineties brochure. An evolved version of a B+W one printed several years prior. The words were written in 1990 to accompany a half-page print ad I was running in VeloNews. They were tweaked for both brochures, mostly to correct for timing and proper nouns....

I began using IC parts in the mid 1970s. Somewhat reluctantly. But I used them just the same. They soon became part of my vocabulary rather than some new language I was forced to learn. As a new maker, I resisted the transition, believing something precious was being...

The Mosey Ride™ season began today. Version 4.0. We started doing these when we returned to the river valley. Maybe the weather and the plague thing are combining to nudge us. We hit the driveway at noon, turned left, and began pedaling. These Mosey Rides™ aren't...

In 1972 when I arrived at Witcomb Lightweight Cycles, Robert Morley had already been there for a while. He was a local boy, younger than I was at the time (and still is, by the way) and doing whatever needed to be done. Assembling, shipping, but not making frames. I...

Another fours hours on this. I moved the levers (both of them) lower on the handlebars by some 18mm. But the tops felt weird. So I increased the tilt a bit more and that was okay. But something was begging for something. I wanted my hands higher. I took the last 5mm...

This is Charles Barrett. He was at Witcomb Lightweight Cycles when I arrived in 1972. I was 18. He was my age, maybe younger. Charles was one of the primary framebuilders. He wasn't a racer or a rider. He did have skills at the bench. As a teenager, Charles took a job...

I’m past the thirty hour mark on this thing. Most of the futzing is behind me. I’m still wrestling with the lever placement versus ‘bar height. To be continued. The shape of some components offends me. They make me wanna wear a radio and tell my director I need a gel....

Mastery comes from repetition. And routine. And relentlessness. But mostly from practice. But mostly from paying attention. When the line you’re staring at for decades not years gets so close you can put your toe on it. And then you become the machine. And then the...

Getting there. Is a process. A game of millimeters. Futzing for ten days. Closer. Until another millimeter gets in my head. I'm rolling now. Some thirteen hours in the book. There is no book. Things feel right. No lines to cross. Yet. A new bicycle is like that pair...

“Connecticut-based Richard Sachs (51) began building frames in the early 1970s. A defining moment for him came later in the decade when he tuned in to a television series produced by National Geographic called Living Treasures of Japan. In it, nine of Japan’s most...

We went home today. If only for the afternoon. To where woods and pond separated us from everything. When solitude was routine. And we were alone. Why didn't you stay? Why did you leave? Questions asked often. The answer for each is different. It was time. Isolation...

and the day(s) when the outside temperature says yeah baby and you suit up ready to tame the beast. and you get 200 yards from the left hand turn out of the driveway and this thing happens. and you know it’s the wind and adjust a gear accordingly. and then the gear...

Despite the plague thing or even because of it always find something to point at. Every day. All day every day. Always. All This By Hand .

“Sachs describes himself as a stickler when it comes to assembling one of his creations. He used to produce between 120 to 130 bike a year, but he cut back so he could spend more time creating the perfect bicycle.” All This By Hand .

All you do is make frames. How do you get pleasure from doing the same thing over and over? . “I don’t have a pat answer, except that when I got involved with this I was drawn to it with as much enthusiasm as I still have now. The biggest enigma for me-and I think...

Things to do before I cross the line. Peel back some stickers. Trim the wires. Find a longer stem. Some road pedals. Decide which wheels to use. Get excited. That last thing get excited is real. I haven’t had a new road bicycle since the middle aughts. Maybe earlier....

find something anything then make it beautiful then make it more beautiful All This By Hand .

Always with the six-foot stare according to my opinion. All This By Hand .