I went, I gawked, I asked questions that totally exposed my ignorance of the finer points of framebuilding. Go to cyclingnews.com, check their galleries, as my camera doesn't come even close to doing justice to the lines and luminosity of those machines.
BUT...
I walked out of the convention hall at about 3.30pm Saturday afternoon, and had a good think while sitting and waiting for the light rail to show up. And I was a bit surprised to find that after looking at all those custom handbuilt bikes for 5 hours, I had no desire to ride any of them.
They cost thousands of dollars. Their paint jobs are more suitable for hanging on a wall than riding around town--let alone being locked to a parking meter. Replacing components would cost thousands of dollars; many of the fiddly bits couldn't be fixed without sending it back to a builder. All that time, I was walking through an art gallery, and while original paintings by Titian or Rembrandt or Monet may look good in a gallery, I wouldn't want to hang them in my living room.
The train showed up, and Slow and I made our way back via rail and trail to Los Gatos. And today, I put a deposit down on the Bianchi, and I'm looking forward to riding it in a couple weeks.
Also, thanks for the chat at the train stop and good luck to the amateur builder from Seattle. I hope he's lucky enough as other builders to have a significant other with a "real job" to pay the bills.
They cost thousands of dollars. Their paint jobs are more suitable for hanging on a wall than riding around town--let alone being locked to a parking meter. Replacing components would cost thousands of dollars; many of the fiddly bits couldn't be fixed without sending it back to a builder. All that time, I was walking through an art gallery, and while original paintings by Titian or Rembrandt or Monet may look good in a gallery, I wouldn't want to hang them in my living room.
The train showed up, and Slow and I made our way back via rail and trail to Los Gatos. And today, I put a deposit down on the Bianchi, and I'm looking forward to riding it in a couple weeks.
Also, thanks for the chat at the train stop and good luck to the amateur builder from Seattle. I hope he's lucky enough as other builders to have a significant other with a "real job" to pay the bills.
9 comments:
i would hang a Titian in my living room.
and/or/next to a nice pale green Hunter.
wait a minute ...
bio-chem nerds aren't supposed to know art history.
BellaSlaveBoy is hiding a sexy-luridalicious past!
Slow is probably much more fun to ride anyway.
Slow is art.
er, uh, olaf.....um....you didn't turn those frames i built into wall hangings, did you? or garden statues?
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I love looking at beatiful handbuilt bike frames.
but, you know, I wouldn't want to ride something that ornate. bikes are tools, toys, equipment, etc.
they get beat up, even destroyed sometimes.
and art for art's sake? there are other mediums i like more.
that all said, it can be very fun and satisfying to make such things...
garden gnomes by Poulsen ...
I agree with the sentiment that a lot of those guys were presenting bikes that are almost too nice to ride. Pegoretti's stuff was ridiculous, and I got a little thrill touching the very chromed lug you have in that photo.
But to be fair I gotta say: Components are components. You can put stoopid expensive parts on any bike whether it's fancy custom steel or cookie cutter aluminum shipped over from Taiwan. Rick Hunter's own CX bike has the lowest end STI lever made by Shimano on it.
I don't know exactly what you mean by fiddly bits, though there are a lot of bits I fiddle with on my bikes, but if you were riding steel many bike shops all over the world could fix things like bent derailleur hangers or fork blades. Point being that depending on the kind of bike, there are many things that could be more practical about it. I think there are probably very few reasons you'd have to send a bike back to a manufacturer, and less if any that you'd have to send a custom ride back more than a factory bike.
I don't own a custom made bike (that's not totally true: my old Rock Lobster Mtb was made for someone else), but all things being equal (or, if I weren't a poor guy) I would far prefer to ride custom bikes (most likely without fancy filed lug work or expensive paint jobs), especially if it weren't for racing or going to be locked to parking meters around SF, and I think custom builders are doing a great service to the bike community. And c'mon, they don't all have sugar mama's. I have a strong ethic of self-sufficiency, but I love seeing people doing something they love and knowing that pursuing their passion is never going to make them rich.
It was nice bumping into you down there and I bet the Bianchi's going to be a fine ride.
OV: you don't know the half of what's going on in my brain, bwah ha ha...
Though if you look carefully, it's not so much art history as shameless art name-dropping. And no contemporary artists represented, tsk, tsk.
L: "Slow is art"--art is slow—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. (with apologies to JK)
Pabacid: yup, creating things is neat, creating something beautiful can be mind-blowing.
And if you're truly making garden gnomes up there in the hills...I'm coming to join you.
Grey: good to hear from you, and good of you to speak up for the builders! Yeah, I came out a little negative about the custom bike thing. The train of thought probably says more about me than about the handbuilt industry. With luck, someday I'll develop taste. ;)
i'm making a gnome out of clay.
first thing i'm gonna do, anyway, when i finally get around to kicking the raccoons out from under our studio...
I recognize that bike! It's in Bolinas, on the side of a houseboat, right?
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