Getting Unit One ready for PBE according to my opinion. A lovely 58cm RS road bicycle thingy with Campagnolo Super Record 12 speed components along with parts from Cinelli, Selle San Marco, Cole Wheels, Challenge, and Cane Creek. Frame material includes PegoRichie...

In another week we'll be together. And for 2019 it'll be the first time all of us will be in one place. Dan. Dan. Bribo. Sokee. Mowens. Guns. TKW. TLD. Buddy. Me. It's not as easy to lead the band as it once was. We're here to make melodies. Finally, at Charm City we...

So this is how I see my trade. More to the point, how I once saw it. The work calls. You spend an eternity listening, and watching, and grabbing what you can from those who walked a path before you did. You know the history. What goes where. Absorption happens. And...

I bought new tools this week. It's a twice maybe three times a year ordeal. When my edge dulls, retail therapy is the antidote. If it happens at the bench, I replace all my files. Away from it, I buy shoes. Always the same. Bass Leytons in black. For a bicycle maker,...

I tell you this from my heart. About something that's lasted. Because we all have these moments. Life came back to visit today. It never goes away. But so many parts leave and get replaced. And what comes after is precious too. Like a bond. The good ones endure. I...

TLD™ (The Lovely Deb) on the right giving me some last minute love before the race on Saturday. Deb is the straw that stirs the RSCX drink, and never assume otherwise. Some day I'll write a book about it. Until the ink is dry on those pages and we've chosen a title,...

Through the years I entered into roughly 10 private sponsorships. That is, support that falls outside the purview of my typical arrangement. Many know that I took the reigns of my original club (CYBC) in 1982 and have associated with the entity ever since. RSCX was...

If you stand around long enough someone will get you in a story about holiday gifts. I'm used to it. This was a centerfold (only right side of staple showing) in Hartford Magazine. Middle 1980s. I was fine with it. Because my interest in the trade was already waning...

Dave Geissert winning the Tour of Martha's Vineyard Pro-Am Road Race in 1987. It's on the shoulders of riders like Dave and his CYBC/RS teammates that I stand. Since 1982 these squads have been my lab rats, my test pilots, my pals. For life in so many instances. Dave...

I could stop. But won't. Five six of these a month. And when I get to this place. I'm fascinated with my work. I shot four dozen images. This one. So many things happen to make this so right. For years it was a vision. Sometimes a struggle. And then one day it...

I emptied the tank yesterday. Four hours over to Stony Creek. I didn't take the side roads into Sachem Head. It was more about getting some legs back in the legs rather than exploring. This was a regular ride I did before we left the Lower River Valley. There are many...

I thought about it while taking a bubble bath. A bubble bath is the default when I skip a ride. At least one per week. Maybe three per in winter and early spring. I thought about the material. And the process. And how no two are alike. Even if (IF) all I ever made was...

Oh my. From my journal at The Peddie School in 1969. Nothing else to add. But I will. Sadly (or not) the streak ended early. My inability to read, to focus on the printed page, to pay attention, or simply to retain - all of this became what's next. And it's been this...

I've been riding since late January. A mild winter and spring. The first 4-5 weeks I wore jeans and Cons and down jackets and a ski cap. No helmet. By March I grabbed the usual dress of my sport. Thermals. Rain pants. Layers. Many days of pedaling. But haven't found...

The objectives for my new B.I.F.I.™ dropouts were varied. They are the descendants of the Piccoli Gioielli™ parts introduced in 2008. The new components incorporated larger diameters. The curves and lines and points and interfaces and clearances had to evolve with the...

There is no better. There is just is. It's taken me a life at the bench to believe this. I've denied it. Wondered about it. Dissected it. Challenged it. Adhered to it. Buried myself inside of it. I make the bicycle. Then set it free. It becomes what someone else...

I saw a certain amount of beauty and symmetry in hand-made bicycles frames, and simply decided that making them was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. In 1980 I was 27 years old. And in the trade for eight years. It was during this period that I finally, as...

The graphic is from The Soul of a Tree: A Woodworker's Reflections. I bought a copy in 1982. It was another window I crawled through. At a time when I needed more. The trade was stale. Inspiration wasn't coming. I'd been at the bench for almost a decade. And in need....

That scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Richard Dreyfus's character is obsessed with what he saw what he thinks he saw what he imagined - it doesn't matter. He goes deep into his dinner and begins to construct a mound on the plate that resembles the Devil's...

In my developmental years at Peddie School (all three of them) I wanted to write. Write anything. When Mr. Roberts and the English Department singled me out as having a gift, it was encouragement - all the encouragement I needed - to write. I ran with it. Semesters...

And in the time it takes to press Send I feel better about myself. Knowing that others too are keeping entropy at the forefront. Despite a life long (so far) desire for order I seldom get close. That's why God gave me a fantasy gene. And I use it. Maybe not daily. I...

Me, in front of the house on 27th street. Every day for eight years I'd leave, make a sharp left, and head for the corner. The yellow bus would collect kids from neighboring towns and deliver us to the Yeshiva in Union City. We'd have Hebrew courses in the morning....

A file stroke is conversation. I pick up the tool. One of them. And try to talk to the metal. The metal always talks back. This much I learned early on. My job is to listen. To talk back. To ask the metal for more time to make my point. To convince the metal that what...

With all the equipment and experience and checks and balances at my disposal one might think nailing it is part of the routine. That would depend on the definition of nailing it. The it is a moving target. If you're lucky you can stand over it stare it down and then...

The pages turn at the same rate of speed no matter how many words are on them or how slowly one reads. In the time it takes a heart to beat, we're looking at so little sand that counting the grains as they pass almost seems possible. There was the day in 1971 I sought...

If you're in trouble and water is involved, call me. I'm here for ya'. I know the drill. Can still practice it. And am ready. The fine print. My specialty is limited to depths of three feet (or less.) And the closer you are to the edge of the pool or beach (or dock),...

He was Bob Scott and that's all I knew. His name was on an order form from one of my dealers. I made the bicycle. Maybe a year later I get a nice thank you note. He was Robert Montgomery Scott. And the stationery came from the office of the President at the...

There's a moment in every assembly when the line appears. And you start to cross it. The other side is where hope is. And hope is everything when you make something for others. Because you make it for yourself first. Sometimes only. The rest is part of an equation...

I reside on both sides of this fashion statement. What I wear, how I feel, the direction I lean - these depend on the day and who and what I want to save. People work themselves into a frenzy over everything. And that's bad for the heart. No matter what it is, take a...

Bicycle making is part metalwork, part design, and part alchemy. The person with the tools tries to coerce a batch of materials into a shape that mirrors his vision. These parts aren't equal. Unless they are. More than anything, the bicycle reflects the maker's...

A shelf of Richie-Issimo, Richie-Issimo 2.0, Newvex, and Sax Max fork crowns simultaneously getting some mid-spring color and staying warm. My parts and their shapes are a direct descendent of the Rostagno sand cast component developed in the late 1950s and...

I love the order of simple things. In simple things. Well made tools that live in the background. There's an in-crowd of small items that support the cast. Files from Grobet and Bahco (depending on size and application.) Enough vintage A.O. 80 grit cloth to last me...

One day at the Leverett Village Co-Op we met a man. A writer. Or maybe a writer to be. Deb had just graduated Simmons with a Masters Degree in Writing for Children. So our chance encounter came with some commonality. I just watched. And listened. When the posturing...

For every bicycle I ship out - that'd be 100% of my output because I've never had a local business or walk in trade - payments come to my post office box about a month later. Some 20 years ago I adapted an open account policy; folks wait forever, and when the unit is...

life is for obsession obsession is for life obsess over something then live All This By Hand .

As a bicycle maker, once a bicycle maker, I became obsessed with tolerances. After a decade of looking at the exterior trying to master it, it was clear(er) to me that the whole mattered more. I could decorate. I knew about position and morphology. Design parameters...