Greetings everyone,
I can't express enough how disappointed I am that such a statement was made in the context of the sidebar that pertaines to my work. I haven't seen the whole article yet, even though I looked at several magazine racks; so I still don't know what the focus and intent of the whole piece is. I suspect it is making comparisons of this to that, or perhaps just highlighting a number of variations within the realm of frames built in the US.
During my meeting with the writer, who came to to my shop I expressed my concern about how the information I was shareing was to be presented, knowing that it is pretty much expected that when a lot of information is condensed into a short written piece something is most likely going to turn out a little twisted. Except for making a blanket statment and naming some names, the rest of the piece looked OK to me. I've only read it over once though.
That one fragment and sentence came from a long lecture as I explained a few basic facts about how long it takes to build a bike frame. The MOST important point about what I said was that the amazing thing about framebuilding (speaking of only lugged steel frames of the past and present) is that great frames (defined as a bike that is fun and effecient to ride and doesn't fall apart in an unreasonable time) can and have been built in unbelievably few man hours. If one only considers the rideability and longevity of the frame, then there are millions of great frames. I believe this to be true. As a framebuilder for over 30 years, I have heard countless riders tell me that their favorite bike, or a bike that was memorable, was anything from a Nisiki professional, and SR semi-pro, a Schwinn paramount, a Peugeot PX-10, a Raleigh International, and on and on with frames that an elisist might schoff at. It's obvious that what is "best" to one person isn't neccessarily best for the next guy. To be perfectly honest, I think most people select a bike more through emotion than any other trait. Once one forms a desire for or attachment to a particular bike, they immediately begin to defend it and compare it to everything else. It's human nature. Sure, we know when we like something and when we don't; but even if we don't like a particular bike I'm quite certain someone else does. I've seen it a million times.
My point would be then from the very beginning, time spent on the frame isn't a determining factor in the quality of the ride or performence of a frame. I explained that for example, about 1 to 2 total man hours are needed to produce a typical carosel brazed frame from the 80's; could be from any factory from Colnago to Pinerello, to Basso, to just about any Italian name you could come up with. Perfectly good frames that I would expect most of us would be proud to own and ride. The typical "high art" early Masi CA frame had less that 8 hours in it's construction. Landsharks are produced at an amazing rate by the hand of one absolutely magical person who can build and paint around 300 handmade frames per year (if I have the stats correct). My understanding of the amount of time that the majority of builders in the world who are professional and making a living spend on a frame (unpainted) is about 15 t0 20 hours. If you compare that 15 to 20 hours to build a world class custom frame to the 1 hour to build the Eddy Merckx world class production handmade frame; that's interesting information and always begs the question; so what is taking the "custom" guy so long. The answer may be a number of things, but basically it has mostly to do with methods used to build the bikes. Custom guys generally do things mostly by hand and production work is done largely by machine( in a sense). The production arena is kept within boundries of offerings. Custom builders most of the time do basically the same. It aids in effeciency of production. But as a custom builder, one can elect to cross the boundry of profitable framebuilding into a different territory. The line seperates those who are successful and profitable from those who are failiers and money losers. Once you're over the line, then it's just a matter of how much charity you are willing to put into a bike frame. There are very few builders foolish enough to operate this way, and fewer yet who will persist at it. At that point there needs to be another explaination as to why one would continue to do do so. For me the answer is "Because I can, and because I like it." The statement in the article should have noted that what I was saying about Roland and Richard and several other names I mentioned, is that they are successful and profitable framebuilders who produce world class lugged steel custom frames (I would assume within the profitable time/profit boundry) and that I was a considerable ways outside that profit boundry. I admire and respect anyone who can build frames successfully. I simply am not capable of it. Therefore I must capitalize on what I can do and try to do my best job of it. From there I had to show and explain why that is so. I think the purpose of the article was to show the different typs of frames built in the States. I believe I was selected to represent the "Lunitic Fringe". Personally I think they made a wise choice. I operate differently than everyone else (as we all do from one another) and one major glareing aspect is the time it takes me to build a frame. Again, that all comes down to methods and to what extent one chooses to go beyond the bare utility of the bike frame. Most choose to go a reasonable distance beyond utility to make a beautiful frame without getting too involved. It's the key to success. Most take their experience over the years and work towards dialing in their sequence, following the trends and improvements in more effecient materials, and focusing on specific styles. I've been moving in the opposite direction and using obsolete vintage materials while becomming more involved in staying away from repitition and expanding my style and interest in framebuilding. All this leads one towards more time spent and less profit per hour. I know that. That's what I want. So the time I spend compared to other world class handmade frames isn't going towards making a bike better than someone else (which is what the statement seemed to imply, and unintentionally I'm sure), but towards making it different. My frames are different than the other guys. We're all different. I wish people would stop trying to decide what is better and realize that what you want to know is how are we different, and that you should have lots of different bikes in order to fully experience the total variety of possibilities for the bike frame. The possibilities are endless. I'm extending my boundries without concern for time spent. I'm entertaining myself. It's what I enjoy.
I hope this clears up how the twisted version of what I explained to the writer got condensed to something that sounds awkward. Simple case of Murphey's Law in action. I expressed my fear, I am comforted not to worry, then Kaboom. It's really hard to get ink in my position, but the worst thing in the world is for something like this where someone puts THEIR foot in MY mouth by involving two of my freinds and collueges like that. I apologize for the error. Had I gotten to proof read the article that would have been set out correctly by saying that the industry standard for profitable custom framebuilding is in the range of 15 to 20 hours. I would imagine most guys are within that time, but each guy is going to be a little different.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA