seeing the thread about which custom bike someone should go for leads me to ask: how did those custom guys get so damn good? i realize that part of it has to do w/ the sheer number of frames they build. but come on, ben serotta had to start somewhere. do they go to frame-building school, apprentice under somebody, or what?
the reason i ask is b/c i think it would be AWESOME to build my own bike one day. i realize that it would probably be worse than a wal-mart huffy, but i appreciate the art of frame building (much as i enjoy building furniture, or would imagine i would enjoy building a wooden kayak, etc.) so, how did these guys get into it?
United bicycle instute is a good start, Barnetts as well…I gave been a student at each
.
Several of the current masterbuilders apprenticed under Whitcomb in England (if memory serves, it was Whitcomb; I know it was an English frameshop)-- Sachs, Serotta, a few others I can’t think of right now. They then returned to the states and perfected the craft.
How did they get so good … talent, hard work, perserverance, talent, honoring the framebuilding tradition … you get the picture.
Building a frame isn’t rocket science. But it does take a combination of skills and aptitudes that don’t often occur together in the same person: brazing/welding ability that borders on the artistic, athletic ability enough to really ride a bike, engineering ability enough to understand the geometry of framebuilding, and humilty.
I’m sure that if you learned to weld, and dedicated a year to the project, you could build a rideable, maybe even decent frame.