Angel, great comment. I'd like to find that book. "Personal Mastery" by Michael Polanyi makes some similar points.
The other comment I'd make is that the whole phenomenon of creating what have become our (on-topic) vintage bikes required not much more than blacksmithing tools (saw, files, torch) - in short, old world craftsmanship that could be set up in any barn, assuming sufficient skill in the hands of the builder.
Modern bikes made of tig welded titanium or autoclaved carbon fiber imply a larger and more sophisticated industrial base supplying pre-preg fabric, tooling, etc - FAR more than you could do with 19th century workshop methods.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. However, most modern bikes are spewed out of factories in China using conscripts on forced labour and shipped en masse to markets with armies of ready consumers - a case study in globalization, just another "product" to be used a couple times and discarded in favor of the next gizmo that comes along.
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Mark Petry Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
mark@petry.org 122.31 W 47.19 N
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