I’ve been interviewing framebuilders since 1992, the first time I called Richard Sachs up on the phone for a piece for Richard Fries’s wonderful regional rag, The Ride. My many interviews with framebuilders over the years have all lost something in translation from the conversation to the printed page (or pixels). I spent years dissatisfied with the outcome and honestly, reduced the number of interviews I did because the outcome was so dissatisfying, not to mention time-consuming for something that missed the spark of the actual conversation.
Back in 2018, during the Red Kite Prayer days, I began a series of interviews with framebuilders. I’ve long harbored a desire to write a book about the craft of framebuilding and I figured I would need to do a bunch of interviews and I realized that the interviews would make for a much more interesting podcast than written posts.
Rather than talk with artisans about their choice of tubing or their philosophy on fitting, in these interviews I decided to discuss the concept of craft and what it takes to be good at something. Honestly, this is, in part, a reaction against the rise of social media fame, and people who are famous and rich for no reason other than being famous. Most of us aren’t that lucky, nor do we wish to chase that particular flavor of fame.
This first episode is to some degree an outgrowth of a long-running conversation I’ve had with framebuilder Richard Sachs. Richard is as much a philosopher as he is a craftsman. In that, I see a kindred spirit to what I do with verbs. It’s fun to talk about how we keep the work fresh and what we’ve learned about how to do our jobs in this most recent phase of our careers.
While these podcasts have been available online almost continuously since their original publication, I’ll be resurfacing them weekly and will be adding to the series with new interviews, which will continue to focus on craft, but will expand beyond framebuilders.
Podcast (thepull): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:33 — 34.1MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS
To learn more, visit Richard Sachs Cycles.