Nice work! My mid-life crisis was selling everything I owned with an engine (7+ vehicles, I can’t remember them all) and buying a new mini van. Great decision, it was a completely reliable road trip vehicle I could put bikes in. If you’re ever in Richmond, stop by, it’s supposedly the 6th most dangerous city in CA.
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I stumbled upon your YT or IG a few months back. Keep it up! Your irreverent off the cuff style gives me serious AvE vibes and I thoroughly enjoyed the videos I’ve watched.
And onto intro: I’m Sean, an electrical engineer by trade but I’ve been slowly buying tools and learning instead of sending my bikes to the shop for the better part of 2 decades. This ultimately led me to deciding to build a frame about 3 years ago. I’ve slowly acquired tools (Brew jig, torch, bikeCAD and mostly Cyclus chasing/facing/reaming) and be starting to glob some bronze as soon as my Cycle Design order shows up next week. In retrospect, I’m glad I waited this long now that we all have this forum as an amazing resource. Thanks @Daniel_Y !
I’m located in York, PA (#paisba). Most of my riding is mixed surface on a Salsa Cutthroat with some MTB thrown in (Bird Aeris AM9) and around town errand running. My first frame will be a fillet brazed mashup of Cutthroat and Fargo geometry running a 120mm fork, drop bars and a Rohloff w/29x2.8 clearance and a 120mm dropper.
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Hello, I’m Francesco from Ferrara, “the city of bicycles”, Italy 
I started loving bicycles when I was given a Bianchi at 14… I took it all apart, cleaned it and put it all back together, obviously I had to go to a bike shop to get it working again. As I got older I got more and more into bikes and of course in 2008-2009 I was stung by the fixie scene. From 2010 to 2015 I was a bike collector, maybe some of you have seen the photo of that guy with 5 lasers behind his back…
In the meantime I studied mechanical engineering and industrial design, in 2018 I started to tidy up the workshop where my grandfather built electric coffee makers, I started welding tubes taken from old frames and built myself the tools… In 2020 during the lockdown I had free time… and I made my first frame.
Unfortunately I’ve never had a master and I haven’t been to a frame builder’s shop, but fortunately the internet is a magical place and thanks to forums similar to this one (velocipede salon), youtube and all the other social networks I’ve started to discover a lot of things about this very expensive hobby.
I was a bike courier for a few years, I raced track for many years and in the beginning I loved to ride a racing bike. With the advent of gravel biking I realized that it’s nicer and safer to stay off the roads. Mountainbikes are not my field, the closest climb is 50km of straight and boring roads.
I mainly build road and gravel bikes, but every once in a while someone nostalgic asks me for a track bike.
I apologize if my English is not excellent, I try to do my best.
I am attaching some bikes that I have done in recent times.
May the sky be clear and the wind always at your back, Francesco
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Welcome! I am glad this forum can help you on your framebuilding journey. I look forward to seeing your first trails
Welcome! What beautiful frames. Your logo looks amazing. I think it’s funny that many builders also were inspired by the fixie scene in the early 2000’s. There must be some connection between the two arts.
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Ciao Francesco da Ferrara!! 
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This for some reason reminds me of one of my favourite movies, Porco Rosso. But googling it seems to suggest it’s part of some Irish prose. Either way your English is more beautiful than mine!
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Hi,
this is Christian (he/him) from Southern Germany (not so far from the Lake of Constance & the Swiss / Austrian border). There are 2 c’s on the downtube - they stand for c-cycles. Nowadays I’m building as a hobby - several years ago I had the idea to build frames for a living. Fortunately this didn’t come true so framebuilding is still mainly a joyful & expensive waste of time. I have a stable output of 2 frames per year (my motto is: build them in winter, ride them in summer)
I started with a frame building class in 2011 and the first frame built completely by myself saw the light in 2012. I started building classic lugged bikes (road and touring bikes). But with time it changed to mainly fillet-brazed gravel and bikepacking bikes, usually I build forks, racks and stems along with the frame.
You can find me on IG c_cycles
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I’m not gonna clutter the thread with a bunch of not-bikes talk but that minivan comment just hit too close to home 
Went from this
to this
Some guys get Corvettes and gold chains, I get a minivan and bmx bike.
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This is so good. Also love the red 20" utility minivelo!
The Minivelo is my city bike. Riding it feels like riding a pony on speed. I love it.
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Thanks! I’ve been too busy to post on here, but catching up now.
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Thanks ! Sorry I’ve been too busy to get back to the forum. Yeah, a thread on e-bike specific stuff would be interesting. Collective purchasing is something I’ve been talking about to a couple of people in the UK - there’s so many new motor/drive system companies appearing that I think there’s a lot more possibilities for handmade builders to create e-bikes than even a couple of years back.
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Hi folks, nice to meet you all.
I’m Kaiwei Chen (he/him/his), you can also call me Kevin. I’m located in Taoyuan, Taiwan.
Have been enjoy the road cycling for 22 years and recently have the opportunity to take a framebuilding class held by a local workshop called Light House located in Taipei, Taiwan, which is known for its cycling industry; however its frame building education is yet to be developed.
My first project is doing a road bike with Columbus Spirit HSS/Max Tubing in Fillet Brazing during weekends so the progress is quite slow but steady. Hand-building by myself makes me more connected and involved in this sports. I really enjoy to learn / familiar / try to make things better. Able to know this forum is really amazing since you guys are so great and kind to share.
My background is Mechanical Engineering and I am the Manufacturing Engineering Manager in Final Assembly Area of Ford Lio Ho Motor Company. Making sure the production line runs smoothly and deliver good quality cars is my daily job but in more management aspect. Frame building hours bring me back those hands on experience and I really enjoy it.
Attached the recent progress of my project undergoing now and my photo.
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Welcome Kevin! It’s very cool to see builders from all around the world. I hope to see more from Asia in the future.
I totally agree! This summer I am hoping to take a trip to Taiwan. Ironically, I want to go there to learn from the industrial frame building industry!
I totally agree. It is funny, most mechanical engineers become engineers because they love building things, but you end up working at a computer all day 
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Hello everybody!
The combination of expertise and kindness on this forum is really remarkable, and I can’t resist taking part! Not sure I can contribute much expertise, but…
My name is Sam Carlson (he/him), and I am a hobby builder, currently working on my 6th frame. I grew up in Boulder Colorado, and got the custom frame bug from the bike culture there. I currently live in Helena MT, a place with some great single track access right from town. From a practical perspective, it makes no sense for me to build custom frames - I have a common enough body size that production bikes fit me fine. But, if I let practical constraints get in the way, life would be much less interesting.
I have been referring to my framebuilding efforts as ‘Garden Variety cycles’ to remind myself that my construction technique is, as best, ordinary. As a benefit, I can name the bikes after vegetables!
I teach and do freshwater science for money and I am trying to figure out how to do both of these things while still having time for life (and bikes!).
Here’s me:
And a bike and a beast! One is named Brussels Sprout and the other is named Oscar.
Many thanks to those who make this forum possible! I have a few interesting frames I am looking forward to sharing!
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My name is Jeremy (he/him) and I’m a hobbyist framebuilder. I’ve been operating under the name Kitchen Party and have been naming my bikes and components after different kitchen tools/appliances. The name comes from the fact that I live in a tiny apartment where I do all my design and bike maintenance in my kitchen/workshop. I’m lucky enough to have access to a small machine shop at work where I currently do all my fabrication.
I have a pretty strong knowledge base in technical textiles but wanted to improve on my industrial/mechanical design as well as my metal fabrication skills. So I started watching youtube videos, hopped into our machine shop and started playing around with our old bridgeport, south bend lathe, and miller synchrowave 250. We eventually upgraded to a bridgeport style prototrak cnc bed mill, and I watched a ton of youtube videos to learn how to cam up some neat bike parts. I’ve never had anyone to learn technical skills from or bounce questions off of so I rely heavily on the internet to help me figure things out. If you have ever posted anything about framebuilding or machining on the internet you’ve likely influenced me in some way, and for that I just want to say thank you.
I fully recognize and appreciate how much easier we have it with the access to information these days. Between all the incredible content on youtube, forums like this and access to programs like bikecad, linkage and fusion 360 we are really living in a golden age. I also really appreciate how open and inviting everyone has been in this forum and hope my contributions can be helpful to others.
I’ve been living in my tiny basement apartment for far too long but that has allowed me to build a pile of pennies to bring me closer to eventually buying a vmc and starting a small company fabricating bike components. That’s the dream anyways. I’m hoping to use the full suspension bike I recently finished (hope to add a build log soon) to test out various components. I’m very interested in working with composites down the road, but am having a lot of fun making things from metal at the moment.
Cheers!
Jeremy
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Looks great! You’re right, it’s so much easier to get info and materials
these days, I guy could do it in his kitchen.
Keep up the good work!
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@Kitchen thanks for sharing. Feel free to drop your website or social links here. Nothing wrong with a bit of self-promotion, especially when you have put so many resources and thought into your projects.
Interestingly enough, there are a few kitchen party bike websites out there…
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Thanks @mark_pmw! I appreciate all the awesome tools and parts you guys put out.
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