Missing the Craft

I miss framebuilding. I make no bones about it. I love damn near every part of the process — and when everything’s happening the way it should, the process of building a frame might be the most rewarding thing I do. (Yes, there are clusterfuck days, and stupid mistakes, and annoying shit that doesn’t seem to go quite right, but I love all of that, too.)

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Tiptoeing Forward: CX Frame Build, Part 9

This weekend of framebuilding didn’t quite go down as planned. When I got to work, I just wasn’t quite in the zone mentally, and based on past experiences, I know that’s when stupid mistakes get made. So I decided to spend my time conservatively — not rushing, and to focus on what I could do with my mindset being what it was. So, you know, not much. While I am supposed to take the occasional day off from my Adderall, today probably wasn’t the best day for that.

First things first, I started off by doing some alignment work. The front triangle was only off by a hair over a millimeter, so I decided to go ahead and run with it. The next step was to get the chainstays into place where they needed to be. That’s done — they pulled inward a couple of millimeters, and it was primarily the drive-side where that was an issue. A couple careful pulls, and it was right where it needed to be. Lastly, wheel twist — when the wheel was in-place, it was pretty obvious that the chainstays were slight out of alignment. A few twists and shoves on the rear wheel while it was in there, and all was right with the world. I spot-checked myself with the H-tool (see the main image above), and everything looked legit. Pretty dang pleased with myself.

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List of Bicycle Framebuilding Schools and Teachers

Here’s my list, which will evolve over time, of individual builders and schools that teach the craft of bicycle framebuilding. I’ll provide contact information and some general notes about each, but seeing as prices fluctuate, I will not include those here. Individual Framebuilders [table id=1 /] Schools [table id=2 /] Something Missing? Am I missing … Read more