Tips for aspiring framebuilders

I remember starting out building and asking advice from Rick Hunter. The first thing he said to me was, “you don’t want to be a framebuilder…” But did i listen?

Now that I’m riding more than building bikes, it’s given me some time to reflect on the last 15 years of trying to make bicycle framebuilding a career. Lovely thing about riding, it’s time when you can’t be doing anything else and have to be alone with your thoughts and soley focused on the road and trail ahead. Whether it’s a good or bad ride, it’s a time to reflect and hopefully reset.

I think back to the hours practicing TIG welding and brazing in the garage after work, not knowing if I was good enough yet to sell frames. I think of taking the plunge and liquidating my meager 401k to buy fixtures, tooling, and machines and trying to learn as much as i could about geometry and fit while building myself and friends new bikes. Then moving back to California after 22 years in Colorado and forming Meriwether Cycles, LLC and applying for tax exempt status, and all the behind the scenes admin stuff that is not fun at all including setting up the numerous dealer accounts to buy the parts that go on a frame. Some wouldn’t accept your application unless you had a storefront so i went without for years only making framesets. I think about being the shipper, handler, and accountant that files quarterly state taxes and the yearly LLC fee and Federal tax returns; being the shop custodian, inventory manager, marketing director, and spending half the day responding to emails and direct messages from potential customers. Then there’s designing and building the actual frames, forks, and bikes. It’s a small business where you do everything whether you like it or not.

But what i’m really here to talk about is some advice i have to new builders that have high aspirations of making a living at framebuilding. It also applies to the hobbyist since i feel like that’s what most of us are out there in the real world of bicycle framebuilding…building ourselves and our friends bikes and eventually branching out to people we don’t know but never expecting to make any money at it. We’re just having fun building bikes and seeing where they can take us.

• First off, you don’t want to be a professional framebuilder….
• Buy BikeCAD and spend a lot of time learning how to use it. This program is so instrumental and instructional in visually comparing geometry, fit, and learning what changes effect other design variables…it’s invaluable. It’s only 2D though so when getting into complicated custom designs and dual suspension you’ll need to dive in further.
• Learn Fusion360 or another CAD software so you can design the parts you need and aren’t available instead of whittling away at metal for hours on end to only make a one-off part that you’ll never want to make again and will forget how you made in the first place. Being able to design complicated 3D frame designs and then figuring out the step by step fabrication process before even going into the shop is a huge time saver and minimizes frustration and wasted metal and money. (Note that I did not do this but for a few builds because of a friend’s help.) Which leads me to…
• Don’t do what I did: The sky’s-the-limit-full-custom frame isn’t profitable unless you can charge enough and that is unlikely, especially when you’re just starting out. This also sets the stage for everyone to expect that type of one-off construction later on and for an unsustainable price. I thought it would help me become a better builder and fabricator, which it might have, but I ended up spending 2-4 weeks on the complicated frames and charging less than I needed. But I thought it would be cool to have every frame look a bit different (not talking about paint but frame design). What I realized is it ends up confusing potential customers because not everyone is sure what they want. Having go-to bike models helps focus the conversation and you can then dial in bike fit and aesthetics more easily from there, as well as have custom options to personalize the bike.
• If i were to start over i’d make models of bikes that achieve what you want each of those classes of bikes to be like: ride quality, parts, everything. Some will gravitate towards your ideal mtb, gravel, road, fat bike and will hopefully inform others and make converts once they ride the bike and share photos on social media.
• Framebuilding is regional, like microbreweries, there could be one in every city since people connect with their local riding style and flavor. Having a builder that understands that will draw people your way. Name a bike model after something regional cyclists can identify with. Some builders gain worldwide traction, but you don’t need that to survive and be successful.
• Your first 10+ frames should be only for you &/or friends. This time helps you figure out the process, real world practice, your contact points, and design the frame around those. It allows time to experiment on geometry and fit to get to the ends of the bell curve where you don’t like what’s changing, further increasing your confidence in your skills and knowledge. Best to test this stuff on people who won’t sue you if the frames break.
• Try to avoid trends and design bikes that make sense to you and your customer. For example, in my opinion frame aerodynamics is a trend. It’s a solution looking for a problem. It benefits 1% of the cycling population and by a very small amount, but it’s marketed as a universal good. I’d argue it has no bearing (and no discernible effect) on the vast majority of cyclists that are buying bikes, especially metal frames.
• Question authority. Nobody knows everything and has ridden every bike or every permutation of every type of bike. There are no absolutes in design that makes a bike feel a certain way or ride a certain way to everyone. Higher BBs don’t make a bike easier to manual/wheelie and low bottom brackets don’t make it harder. It’s an interaction of variables that come together to form an experience. My 84mm of BB drop 29er with 425mm chainstays wheelied better than any other bike I’ve built myself. But this goes against institutional knowledge. Try new things, you might get surprised.
• There is no right geometry for a mountain, fat, gravel, or road bike. It’s what’s right for the user’s history of preferences, their intent and style of riding, and even their location. Start with what bike they like the best today, then design from there incorporating what they would like to behave better, or what features they want added. Designing custom bikes may be simpler than you think.
  • In 2000, we believed 75mm of trail was correct for a mtb and when 29ers came out we made sure to steepen the head angle to achieve this max trail figure with the suspension forks that were available. Then 10 years later we got past that by trying slacker head angles but then thought 100 was really high trail so fork manufacturers built forks with higher offset to lower trail on slacker head angle frames. More recently people realized they liked shorter offset forks even with the super slack head angles (likely because it shortens front center but also stability) and because of that we’re so high above 100mm of trail I’ve lost track.
  • Short chainstays were championed for added climbing traction, now long chainstays are preferred for the same reason and are said to have a more balanced ride with longer front centers.
  • To my knowledge no 90mm stems existed until Genesis geometry in the late 90’s. Now most bikes have 35 to 50mm stems, 70 max. Not many new gravel bikes even have 90mm stems!
  • What will be next? Maybe you can help figure that out.
• Question what you think you know. There is always more to learn, always more to try. You’re standing on the shoulders of those who built before you and shared what they know, so get to know who they are and what they’ve made. I’m talking back to the origination of the bike itself and flipping through The Data Book : 100 Years of Bicycle Component and Accessory Design. In our little corner of the bike industry, very little is actually new so give credit where credit is due. If it is actually new there may be a good reason why nobody has done it before.
• Try NOT to be a grumpy misanthrope that only talks to himself and gets annoyed at every new “standard”. Speaking from experience here 🙂
• Go to the bike shows, they’re the Conferences of the framebuilding world. Even if you’re not displaying and getting a booth, these people are your new community, inspiration, and friends.
• Have fun!