Where are all the bikes?

I posted a few photos on a cycling forum the other day and got a question from someone asking “where are all the bikes?”. This is not the first time this has been asked and it’s understandable. If you see photos of my shop there are only a few bikes, typically Karin’s and mine, hanging up. One won’t see the typical builder shop photos with bikes hanging from hooks everywhere. The same thing happens when I have a visitor. They walk in and look around and inevitably ask “well, where are all the bikes?”.

There’s reason you don’t see a shop full of bikes and that is that I build one frame at a time. I start the frame and work on it until it’s completed and shipped off to JB, and only then do I start another. When I get bikes back from JB I hang parts on them and then turn them around and get them out the door to their new homes within 24 hours so they aren’t here for long and are seldom seen in shop photos. That means you won’t see frames that are 1/2 done hanging from hooks everywhere. This, in my opinion is very important for more reasons that I can count but the most important reason is that it means you don’t have to wait as long to get the frame you have on order. If I have a shop full of frames that are 1/2 done I have a huge amount of time,  labor  and materials on those hooks and the customers don’t have the bikes. It’s a lose-lose situation IMO. So, there are no extra bikes here. On any given day there is the bike in process and maybe a bike that just came back from paint and that will be it.

Here are a few photos of the bike that has been in the shop for most of the last week. It’s for Barry and it’s a traditonal straight up sport bike with side tack seat stays (using Kirk shaped caps) with room for 28mm tires. Should be a lot of fun. It will be done on Monday and on Tuesday another will get started and the hooks will stay empty.

Have a great weekend.

Dave

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