The Glenwood Springs Post Independent had an interesting article (registration required) last week about high school students from Carbondale learning to build bike frames from master frame builder Koichi Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi has built thousands of bike frames including frames used by Lance Armstrong and Bobby Julich.
The article says that even today’s “custom” bike frames are generally built using machines, not the hand-crafted process used by Yamaguchi and his students, which is surprising. It seems like every day I hear of another “boutique” bike company that’s building custom frames but I guess finding a company that produces hand-crafted frames is rare. Yamaguchi says it takes him about 6 hours to build a frame by hand and that the students will be able to build their own frames in about 7 days. Hmmm… maybe there’s an idea for a reality TV series here – American Chopper meets the Apprentice?
