Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, and cute fuzzy animals,
I am both pleased and excited to announce to everyone that the newly
formed co-op of San Diego based framebuilders and painters has become
a reality. Within a few short weeks the paint and restoration shop
will be operational and is now ready to consider selected paint and
restoration work. There will be a slightly longer lead time during the
early stages for completing work due to the remaining orgornizational
tasks, but our focus and intent is to keep the quality of the work at
the top of world class workmanship and the turn around time
reasonable, considering the relative complexity of the job. We will be
specializing in certain types of restoration (along the lines of my
Vintage Cycle Studios work) and also will offer OEM paintwork to
framebuilders under certain circumstances. Some will be regular
accounts and others may prefer to send only special jobs to us based
on special needs or specific customer requests. We aim to become
recognized as the best that the paint and restoration business has to
offer within our speciality.
Our pool of knowledge and available talents will hopefully set the
standards for the industry. Each of the members will also be feeding
and learning from the others, causing the growth and progress of each
of our members to expand exponentially at an alarming rate. Not since
the days of the San Marcos co-op (housing Kirkbride/Allen, Moulton,
Tesch, Baylis, cycleart, and Confente had he not passed away) has
there been such potential within a small group of bicycle artists and
craftsmen. Each of us will be functioning as seperate business (except
Carlos and I will run the paint business), but at the same time each
will be helping the others gain resources, knowlege, and experience.
We will also be setting up a full machine shop where we can all learn
machining for toolmaking, fixturemaking, prototyping, and
framebuilding. This is very exciting for all of us and again will
expand our horizions and abilities to produce world class bicycles and
bike related products.
Eventually we will have space for guests to come and learn with us on
a short term basis and probably teach advanced framebuilding skills
and design, in addition to painting. Our first guest resident will be
Jeff Lyon from OR who is going to spend 2 months with us this summer.
We will be helping local aspiring framebuilders for a while and then
expand to guests and students from other parts of the country. Jeff is
a long time friend and had planned on this even before we got this
thing rolling, so he goes first.
As a restoration company, Carlos Martell (Sir Maldoror) will be the
director and manager of the co-op and the paint business. I will be
helping and supporting as I focus on my own framebuilding duties and
special product developments in my new workshop, once it is completed
in late 2007 or early 2008. We are negotiating with new platers in an
effort to keep chrome prices under control, but we still have a more
than 20 year relationship with our local plater. A graphics department
will be established once we get underway to provide restoration decals
in certain situations. We plan to keep abreast of the latest trends in
materials and finishing concepts in order to offer the most complete
services in the business. Only the best frame repair standards will be
used in our shop to insure that the collectables recieve the best care
available anywhere on the planet.
Stay tuned for future announcements as to contact information and
prices. Website forthcomming. For those who are attending the Cirque
du Cyclisme in Greensboro, NC next month, we will have a special
preview of what the future holds in the resortation business and the
development of new artists and craftsmen in the custom frame business.
There is certainly strength in numbers, and we shall prove it in due
time. I'm too excited for words.
Current members of the co-op are Carlos Martell/ Maldoror Cycles
(winner of "Best New Framebuilder" at NAHBS 2007, Chuck Slesinger of
Saldilah(sp?, sorry I don't know all the proper spellings for
everything just yet), winner of "Best Track Bike" at NAHBS 2006,
Richie Ditta, future winner of Best New Framebuilder ;-) (2008?) and a
very fine new builder headed for stardom, David Taitano Jr., yet to
begin but possesing enough potential to get in on the ground floor of
this group, and myself, an old dog who will certainly be learning some
new tricks.
I hope at least some of you are as excited as I am about the potential
of this organization. In addition to our work, we also intend to set
the standard as a group who will be a beacon of upfront, truthful
information regarding information relevent to painting and the art and
craft of framebuilding. People everyone can count on to avoid heavy
marketing campaigns and provide facts, live up to the standards we
set, and not mislead the public in order to make the almighty buck.
The industry, as small and insignificant as it is in the grand scheme
of things, is frought with far too much of it these days. We hope to
turn the tide towards integrity in advertising and promotions of one's
work, for the benifit and sake of the public who is thirsty for
straightforward useful information about a craft that has way too
much "mystery" for the sake of keeping the public confused about what
is real about what frames and framebuilding is really all about at
this level. The builders also need this beacon they can depend on to
help them grow and blossom.
Thank you all for reading this far. Let us all benifit and prosper in
accordance with the actual merits of what we all seek to do. We shall
exist for the benifit of all, not just a special few.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
USA