Next time I am in the Bay area for work we should meet up.
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Just randomly stumbled across this forum. Tom here from Ontario, Canada. Have wanted to build a frame from scratch for a long time. A while back I assembled an oxy/propane setup from some content Doug Fattic shared online, but with twin boys, and a demanding job, its been difficult to find the time since I also build furniture and actually want to ride bikes as competing hobbies. Lately I’ve fired up the torch again to do some modifications to an existing frame I own, and hoping to use a work sabbatical that I have coming up later this year or early next, to take a framebuilding course for more formal training, though I hope to get frame one built before then!
I mostly ride mountain bikes, but there is every time of riding imaginable within 10m of home (including an indoor track). Really excited to meet you all and to have found a dedicated forum for this!
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Hello Everybody,
my name is Sebastian and im living in Austria in a small town near Vienna. It all startet in 2019 when I found an old Puch (very famous brand in Austria) bicycle on the dumpster and began to rebuild it. I made some pretty big adventures on it, but the frame was to small for me, so I decided to build my own bicycle. I am very much into Bikepacking and adventure bikes.
I built all my fixtures and jigs on my own because I really enjoy the process of building stuff.
To be honest in the beginning, there was so my I didnt know where to look up, but the videos from Paul Brodie helped me a lot to figure out what to do.
So my first frame is nearly finished, but the next one should be much quicker because now I have got all the fixtures.
My name on Instagram is also Bastel_Mann
Best regards from Austria Sebastian
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Howdy,
I’m Brock, I live and play in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. I was raised on bicycles and they have been a part of my life longer than I can remember. I have never built a bike frame but have a decent amount of fabrication experience from modifying jeeps.
I have a degree in Mechanical engineering and have worked in several different industries including a few years at Strider bikes where I designed my first bike frame: a 20" convertible balance/pedal bike that will fit riders from age 8 to adults and meet ISO4210 and CPSC1512 . I learned a lot about designing bikes using anthropometric data and mass production in China.
After seeing first hand so many of the things that are wrong with the current bike industry. I decided I wanted to design my own bikes with rider first and shred ready geometry and that is what has led me here. I recently acquired a TIG welder (took a welding course back in college) and have been designing and manufacturing FDM 3D printed parts for a while now.
The first frames I build will be personal projects but I was inspired by @Daniel_Y and his streamlined CAD generation and plan on setting my bikes up this way. Since framebuilding is not my full time job, I love the idea of using automation and 3D printed parts to reduce labor and complexity.
Finally, I am also a BICP level 2 certified Mountain Bike Skills instructor. I am in the process of starting a part time business as a MTB skills instructor and am excited to start building frames and learn more about how frame geometry interacts with how we ride the bike and teach how to ride a bike!
I’m sure I will have tons of questions as I grow but I would also like to offer my experiences with engineering, manufacturing, and MTB skills instruction/theory to anyone that is interested!
Cheers!
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Hi all,
I’m Danielle (she/her) and I’m in my 10th year of building frames (wild!). I’m located in Squamish, BC (Canada). You can find me on Instagram @schonstudio although I don’t usually post much but am currently trying to be better at that.
Im a welder and NDT technician by trade and have worked in all sorts of shops from bike shops to heavy industrial to manual machining to production line work to high end architectural. I come from a formal fine-arts background prior to my entry into the trades and that influences most of my personal direction and design.
I originally learned Framebuilding from both Paul Brodie and Koichi Yamaguchi, and years later in a full-circle moment worked as a teaching assistant for Paul at his Framebuilding 101 program. I had excellent experiences at both programs learning from undoubtedly masters of this craft.
As of 2020 and the closure of several large west coast Framebuilding programs (101, UBI) I decided to start formally offering a “Framebuilding Foundations” course out of my own shop here in Squamish. I am currently offering ~6-8 courses over the year and hope to do so continually. You can learn more about the program here.
I feel compelled to offer this program for a few reasons:
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Having a consistent, organized/formal, domestic learning offering through the year for those in the country (have you SEEN the exchange rates lately
) -
As far as I know there are few or no women teaching formally (please correct me if there are as I would love to connect with them) and my own experience of having few or no women as instructors throughout my trades schooling has only re-affirmed the importance of having this option.
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I strongly believe a younger and modern perspective is important in guiding new Framebuilders
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Gatekeeping and bullying those who know less than you about a craft you love serves no one, and the holier than thou tone of some/a lot of this industry is something I believe we can collectively change moving forward, and an attitude I hope I can personally influence at that entry-point into this arena.
That’s my ten cents (p sure that works out to 2c USD). I’m happy to see a community/education oriented space like this pop up and much thanks to Daniel for the initiative and effort involved.
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Great interview on SU&BB
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Heya. I’m Viola from Sideways.
I make carbon fibre frames and I can barely manage posting to my Instagram. I will try and contribute where possible. Lovely to see a nice community forming. Thanks for setting it up.
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Hey all, I’m Kurtis. I am based out of Medicine Hat Alberta, and I started Lone Tree Enterprises last year to help a few folks with some custom bike designs they needed done. I have been (very) slowly expanding into product design for some tooling and frame components from there, while taking on some custom design work to help fund this little hobby.
My background is in Mechanical Engineering, and I have worked in the defense sector for 14 years now with a focus on product design and systems engineering.
I have been playing around with frame building myself although, I do not currently plan to sell any complete bikes. My welds aren’t quite there yet and the design side keeps me busy enough at the moment.
Looking forward to engaging with more people in this community, and learning what i can from all the experience here. Also, a huge shout out to Daniel for getting this up and running!
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Hi Everyone -
I’m Garth, a hobby builder living in Western Massachusetts. I took a class from Steve Garn of Brew Bikes in 2020, and finally started building a frame in spring 2022 after not nearly enough welding practice (it hasn’t broken yet!).
Frame building has a lot of competition for my time between my family, work as an architect, riding my bikes, and playing fiddle. Because of the dearth of free time I tend to rush things a bit. I don’t have any real tooling, so cut all my miters with a bench grinder and files. I’m also a serious cheap-skate (hence the lack of tooling), so I tend to find ways to do things on the cheap.
I’m designing frame #4 now, and I love being able to define the critical aspects of my frame. I’m looking forward to testing more geometry tweaks to see what works for me. I’m still not convinced by the long chain stay argument… (I’m looking forward to regretting that statement).
I’ve really appreciated all the knowledge and inspiration here, thank you all.
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Welcome Garth! Nice looking bikes! I’m going to be moving to Western Mass, likely in August. Maybe we can have a custom frame bike ride then in the fall haha
Let me know when you’re around, I’m always up for a ride!
-Garth
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I’m in CT. I’m down. Guys off 91?
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Awesome! Yes, planning to land in Northampton area, depending on what we can find house wise when the time comes
Hey everyone!
My Names Justin. I’m based in Nebraska and have really fallen down the rabbit hole of bikes over the last 5 years or so. Before all my free time was absorbed with bikes I was pretty heavy into the car scene, specifically the forced induction LS corner. I started off riding XC MTB (believe it or not we have some very surprising trails in the Nebraska area!) and have since expanded that into enduro/DH and branched out to BMX, racing and freestyle, and gravel as well. I’ve always had a fascination for what makes things work, putting my own unique twist on things, and especially metal fabrication and finishing. Beyond riding bikes, I enjoy painting bikes, coaching the future of our sport in both MTB and BMX, and building trails/dirt jumps. By day I work in Quality in the automotive industry, and have enjoyed finding this balance in my career and hobbies.
What started as riding bikes, became fixing bikes, being the trail or track mechanic, painting bikes, building wheels, so on. I figured the next step was building frames. While I’m fairly competent with MIG, I picked up my first TIG welder (a very basic Eastwood DC) about 6 months ago and have been gluing scrap together to get my skills up since. I’m happy with the progression so far, but as with biking, always trying to do better! I’m currently putting together my first frame, which will be an OS20 BMX racing frame, primarily mirroring the geometry of my current race rig while implementing a few small changes from some of the other frame manufactures in that corner. I’m finding the resources and research around frame design in the BMX world is somewhat lacking and lagging behind other corners of the industry, so I’m excited to explore in that area more moving forward. One of my favorite things of this process has been realizing while I thought I had some grasp on geometry and what makes a bike work, I truly had no idea. Its really the process of learning and being challenged that excites me about cycling in general, and frame building is no different.
Thanks for taking the time to read through my rambles, and I’m super excited to be part of this project with all of you! Feel free to follow along at my personal/general bike stuff @jsimpson 336 or my adventures in novice frame building at @Dark Horse Frameworks.
My trusty steed. '21 Guerilla Gravity smash with one of my more tedious paint jobs to date.
Where I’m at with my first frame build. Currently down the black hole of researching bending stays.
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Hi everyone,
My name is Spencer Maughan. I live in Springville Utah, USA. So far, I have made a single bike. You can find me on Instagram @spencermaughanhasasmartphone which is where I’ve “met” several of you.
I work as an industrial designer at Fezzari Bicycles and I am really bad at knowing when to shut up. So feel free to ask me anything. I love to play around in CAD designing things just for fun and sometimes make them in real life. I don’t have access to a machine shop but would love to make more cool bike designs a reality. I don’t know everything but I’ll gladly share whatever I know.
I don’t know if that’s a good introduction, but I like to ride mountain, road, track(on the streets because no velodrome) and a bit of commuting.
Excited to be a part of this and hope to be able to build my second frame in less time than it took to build my first.
-Spencer
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Hi, My name’s Tore (they/them/he/him) I live in Sydfyn, Denmark and I launched my brand Starfish Bicycles a couple of weeks ago.
I got interested in cycling seven or so years ago when my sister gave me her old Bianchi ss conversion and I found out that riding bikes can be fast and fun. Spent the next couple years being into fixed bikes and did a Denmark around tour in the summer of 2018 which sort of also marked the end of my fixed gear craze.
I spent most of my teenage years riding street and trials unicycling and the most hated object in that community is ofc the bike (I mean, who needs two wheels?!). So it took some time getting used to the fact that I was now more into bikes than unicycles…
In 2019 I attended an art school and was applying for the art academy for the second time, but while making works for the application I stumpled across Cobra Framebuilding and Paul Brodie on youtube and it really lit a fire in me! When I got back from the art school I decided on starting a metal working education.
I’ve always been building stuff and worked with my hands in a very DIY-punk-ish way but now I was really motivated to get to learn a trade and become really good at it.
I finished my education in the summer of 2022 and during the education I apprenticed at a metal workshop that had a water jet cutter which I could use for free in the off hours so I made a copy of Paul Brodies frame jig designs and all the tools I could think of while I was still working there.
During my apprentice time I had also got myself a workshop space in an old uninsulated dairy production facility from the 1940’s (very beautiful, very cold!), bought a tig-welder and an oxy-ace setup and with the jigs all ready and time on my hands I got to work.
Been spending most of my work time since november practicing and building in the workshop and I’m just loving it.
Currently 2 personal frames down and starting design process for the third next week.
I hope to be building with a focus on small batch production and reapirs and mods. But lets see what the future brings. Just very excited and grateful to be able to spend my time on something I really enjoy.
When I’m not in the workshop I enjoy going on bike rides with friends and volunteer in my local bike coop, Cykeltutten and also very into knitting and sewing (mostly bike bags though) atm.
This is my second frame and the sign says SØSTJERNE CYKLER which means Starfish Bicycles in Danish. It was handpainted and gifted to me by my sister (@veronika_skilte in ig, check her work out).
Looking forward to see what this forum brings. Untill now it seems to be a very nice place <3
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I thought I’d better jump in here and inroduce myself since I’ve been active in the discussions.
My name is Sean Doyle and I own/operate Devlin Custom Cycles is Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
I started riding road around about '84-85 and then XC around '91. Back then, there were quite a few frame builders in Australia but with the aluminium and carbon phase pushing steel to a niche material, the numbers of local builders fell. Like everywhere else though the resurgence of steel and custom frames has meant there is a healthy number in our small community is Australia now. I woould say there are probably 20-25 commercial builders with maybe 5 making a living from it full time.
I started building bikes in 2013 after pestering Dazza at Llewellyn Custom for a few years and had my first customer beginning 2015. I’m still riding that first frame, though not that often anymore and have built nearly 30 bikes now. Including 4 full suspension bikes.
My plan is to keep building teh road and gravel bikes as a custom offering and have the trail bikes as a small run production boutique kind of thing. It seems very difficult to impress the mtb crowd with a custom mtb. Road and gravel crowd are an easy conversation to have.
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Those full squish bikes are awesome. It’s been fun to see full suspension becoming a thing for custom builders now that front derailleurs went away and the kinematics are easy to deal with.
-Walt
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Thanks Walt. Yeah, the 1x setups have certainly reduced the complexity and compromise in that area of the bike. Means we can put pivots exactly where they need to be.
Is that a Trek rocker in the last photo?
I used to use those until I got too lazy to do anything but single pivots.
-Walt