Seattle Framebuilding Chat
(photo by Alistair Spence, from his flickr site)
A couple of weeks ago I posted a message on the framebuilders list inviting amateur and hobbyist builders to come over to my house for some beers, chips, and to talk about building bikes. Yesterday was the day and Alistair Spence, Dan Boxer, Joe Dube, Mark Bulgier, Eric Bailey, Colin Stevens (who helped friends move by bike earlier in the day) and myself met up at my house. A couple of others were interested, but couldn’t make it this month.
Mark brought a bucket full of lugs (sadly I didn’t take a photo) which we spread out on the table and which triggered a lot of conversation. He also had a couple of cut apart joints from some of his earlier bikes. Eric brought two forks and racks that he had been working on. Dan rode over on a bike that he had built, and Alistair had his highly modified Rivendell Porteur. I showed a bottom bracket post that I was building for my alignment table. Joe and Mark brought a lot of interesting stories about welding and we talked about Ti, brazing,lugs,dropouts and lots of other things.
Almost 5 hours, 15 or so beers, a bag of chips, much cheese and hummus later we parted ways. Everyone had a good time and we agreed to do it again in August. We’re going to rotate shops and will meet at Joe’s next time. Seattle isn’t Portland when it comes to the number of people building frames, but there is still a lot of interesting stuff going on here. By getting to know each other I think we’ll all be able to better share knowledge and develop our craft.