By Peter Easton
Road Magazine
In the contemporary world of bicycle manufacturing, the majority of artistry that defines the mainstream production of a bicycle can be found primarily in glossy advertisements and flashy animated websites. In some instances, the actual product consists of very little art outside of a paint job. For some factories and warehouses, their stalls are filled with endless rows of frames hanging in repetition, barely distinguishable from each other. The art of framebuilding has seen many pioneers, those artists and sculptures who set out to carve their niche in a specialized segment of the industry, each with their own talent, materials and eventually, customer loyalty that helped fill orders and spread the word. But it’s no secret that a life as a framebuilder is a labor of love, and not the glamorous lifestyle some photos may portray. Tight margins, endless hours and demanding customers are just a few of the issues the struggling torchbearer has faced, and many have folded, with little success as a business.
Toward the end of the 1990s, a significant shift in frame building and materials was in full swing, and titanium had become the exotic metal everyone had to have, and few builders had expertise in. Light, resilient, compliant and with a high strength to fatigue ratio, titanium bike manufacturing sprung up across the country in an effort to capitalize on the demand, explore new possibilities, and advance the development of an emerging technology. While many looked closely at how to produce a large number of frames with cheaply sourced titanium, one builder felt the time was right to take a larger look at how to develop the infrastructure to build a large number of frames one at a time.
