Hi listers,
This was one thread I was pretty sure I was just going to watch....
But Chuck Hoefer's comments inspired me and I found myself passionately driven.
My kid is 18. Just one season of mountain biking with the NORCAL league and his grades went form truly mediocre to AAAAAAA. Now he wants to take classes at UBI and get a degree (at Stanford?) in business and own a bike shop like Chuck's apprentices.
As parents, WE NEVER KNOW where the *s t u f f * will come from! A 5 day class? A season racing?
Maybe the kid will never touch a torch. .. . . .the point is life is a smorgasbord. I heard a kind of wistful noise in prior posts, like KOF bike building could die out..... Maybe this is the way of "craft" in general, or of anything that takes time and care: Judaism, Navajo sand painting, the way of the Jedi...
Let's keep our eyes on our work. Dude, you're over-heating that tube!
If popular value for what we do wanes, then the quality our attention to the work we do is, then even more, the only essential thing.
Paul E Bailey
Richmond, CA USA