That's not a robot right there.
Live music is better than recorded music. It’s a given. Having that connection, where you’re sharing the same space as the artist is a unique experience that can’t be replicated on a plastic disc. To receive the gift from the giver personally is a moment of intimacy not possible if it arrives in a package in the mail. To be able to garner instantaneous gratitude, be it by applause, cheers or a smile is the reward that the artist lives for, else they wouldn’t be there. Showing appreciation for the gift returns the favour in kind. The performance feeds the audience, and vice versa.
Vinyl records hold the same sort of appeal that steel bicycles do; both materials revolutionised their respective industries and held the mantle of the best, the only choice, for decades. Then both were usurped by smaller, lighter composite materials and while the convenience and perceived performance they offered took over on a wholesale scale, a handful of purists held on to their Electric Ladyland limited edition LPs along with their Colnago Masters and Merckx Leaders. Vinyl may have been suddenly deemed cumbersome, inconvenient to use and harder to source, but it still offered a timeless sound quality that just had something about it, something that CDs and MP3s would struggle to achieve.
Same with steel bikes. There’s an indisputable and indescribable feeling that comes in the first few pedal strokes on a steel bike, and like pulling out that dog-eared copy of Hunky Dory, you know exactly what you’ll be getting, and you’re gonna like it. Picking up a hand-built bike from the person who made it is like going down to the studio to grab a signed slab of wax that Nick Cave hands to you himself. Straight to you.
Where the vinyl record remains round, grooved and black, the steel bicycle’s tubes remain round, straight and flat. You can’t improve on what’s proven. What’s perfect. Only the touch of the hand of the artist can make each one unique, where things that are really just simple things (a record, a bicycle) can be themselves set apart by the signatures laid upon them by their creators, curating originality (Jagger, Jaegher). To say it’s pretty special to see your own bicycle being made, your name on the tubes as they come together to be joined forever by the heat of the torch and the deft touch of the electrode, would be a modest assessment. To finally ride it, might be impossible to describe.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Haldy
I've tried my hand at some TIG welding..... much damn respect to the man that can lay a bead on that!!!
@VeloSix
We are going one better than TIG welding here...Don will be filet brazing this frame! Going to have super silky smooth and sexy joints.
@Haldy
Mad skills, man. Mad fucking skills!!
Nice to see your frame in progress Brett. It's the wait for completion the hardest part of a custom frame.
Found a way to test your frame's strength, maybe on KT?
Try that on carbon! Pic found here
@brett Excellent, excellent, excellent.
Recently saw Sting and Paul Simon live, and to say the words of your article ring true is an understatement. Amazing wordsmiths who tell stories through their music and lyrics.
That frame will be a keeper (pardon the pun) which, if it could talk, will tell many tales.
Keep the photo's coming, I live vicariously through those pictures.
@David
I love steel bikes but this is bullshit, and sounds borderline racist.
A good carbon bike is both lighter and more comfortable than a steel bike.
But a good steel bike is a beautiful thing, and it's true that it is easier to get custom steel than custom carbon.
Wow awesome pictures! I've never seen a frame being made so that is very interesting. The fit on those tubes around the bottom bracket is very impressive
@Haldy
That is some seriously intense precision on the cuts. Holy bonkers. As soon as I can stop fucking around with the site, I'll be meeting with Steve Hampsten on a similar subject.
Fuck yeah.
@Brett
I keep thinking this welder is you as I'm dicking around with the photo album layout for the DM Albums replacement.
On that note, when I built DM Albums, there was nothing else like it. Now, embedded photo album plugins are a dime a dozen and I have to say that for $19 and lifetime updates, I'm very happy to pass the responsibility of maintaining that tool on to someone else. (Its MetaSlider, FWIW). Works great, looks great.