I'm constantly amazed at the number of excellent American custom builders. It seems every week someone here points out yet another one or two I'd never heard of before. This is particularly amazing considering the consistent almost unanimous testimony from builders about how little money there is in this line of work. I think it must be like small wineries or microbreweries. People start them because the love the lifesytle, or at least the imagined lifestyle, despite universal warnings about the poor profitability.
I think we are actually now living in the "golden age" of American framebuilding, just as the golden age of British framebuilding seems to have been from the end of WWII to maybe 1960. The odd thing is that the current era in North America is despite the fact that the bicycle has not been an important form of basic transportation here for almost a century, and that many of the custom buiders use designs, techniques and materials considered obsolete by the mainstream American bicycle industry.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
SCutshall <istanbultea@comcast.net> wrote: I never seem to see mention of Bob Brown and Bob Brown Cycles out in Minnesota during these KOF posts.
http://www.bobbrowncycles.com/
Besides my custom http://www.pbase.com/
It's a big world out there and sometimes you gotta look past the obvious & usual suspects!
Best-
-Scott Cutshall
JC, NJ