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.
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@frank
I'll be seeing Don in a week at NAHBS. Since I'll be running his booth for him I can put in the word for you and he can make you a sweet frame. :-)
@frank
After all...Don's team colors are orange and black...
I remember when I had my custom Indy Fab steel 29er deluxe made over a decade ago. Riding that bike was like wearing custom clothing, it literally fit like a glove. After 11 years and a cracked chainstay I retired it. It is not dead, just awaiting resurrection. I miss the ride of that bike, nothing compares to the ride of that frame, nothing. It was like a fine wine, it felt better the older it got, until I broke it. 11 years out of a steel mtb frame is all I gave to say about a custom steel, 11 years of abuse and kept giving
@Bruce Lee
Your name always reminds me of collecting Garbage Pail Kids in elementary school. Sorry in advance.
@Haldy
Oh boy.
Word.
@frank
Just sayin'....I mean..I'll be in his workshop a week from tonight putting my bike together( and a couple of others) for the show...I can help him pick out the tubeset....
@The Grande Fondue
You're not hearing me and/or listening to me.
you're a prime example of the kind of Fred I'm talking about.
@frank
ABOUT FUCKIN TIME! Yee haw!
@David
No, he's not agreeing with you... different thing.
Nor do I.
I've got custom steel and I've got high end carbon.
The steel feels and looks lovely and a custom fit is something everyone should do, but steel is also slower, softer and heavier. If you think that only matters to less than .01% of the cycling population then you must live in a very different world.
They're different things and they each have their place. Denigrating one over the other suggests a lack of understanding.