St. Etienne was the center of the bicycle universe in the early part of last century. Framebuilders, part makers, wheel builders, you name it, if you needed it, one could just walk the streets of this French city and find it being manufactured.
Here in Portlandia we have an embarassement of riches when it comes to bicycle shops, bike friendly cities, and more framebuilders than you can shake a stick at. Three major framebuilding material suppliers are located here:
Henry James, which makes exquisite cast lugs, and still has a bit of True Temper tubing left in inventory.
Torch and File is the place to get Reynolds tubing, as well as production worthy framebuilding tools.
Framebuilder Supply is the relatively new kid in town, but is quickly becoming the go-to place for brazed bits, flux, filler rod, and now all of Kirk Pacenti's line from lugs.com, as well as a local supplier of Columbus tubing - and they deliver locally by bicycle.
United Bicycle Insitute has dozens of framebuilding courses offered during the year from their North Portland "campus". They have some full time instructors, and each of the classes typically has a local guest framebuilder in to help teach the class and dish out real world expertise.
@
aggiegrads (Steve) is having a full blow gravel bike built by
Page Street Cycles, a combination of Chirs Igleheart and Joseph Ahearne, both heavy hitters in the framebuilding world. This seems to be a common theme recently, two framebuilders making like minded bikes in "custom batch" mode. This splits the costs of space, and gets more utilization of the capital equipment (lathes, mills, etc.) I work with Steve, last Friday he took me down on a long lunch break to check out the progress on his frame.
Page Street Cycles is a Willie Wonka-like shop of cycling "stuff". There's a lot going on here, I'll just show some pictures rather than describe it.
BTW, in the background is Mitch Pryor, visiting his old mentor on a working vacation. His
MAP rando bikes are top shelf for the long distance, low trail gang. He's helping to catch up on custom rack production for some recent builds. I've purchased some of his rear dropouts for some recent frame upgrades.
Steve is also having a bike built for his son. I think he gave him the choice of a used car or a new bike for his birthday. The kid's being raised right, he chose the new bike. Here Steve is checking progress. Just a bit more labor, and it's done.
Almost directly across the street is
Breadwinner Cycles, the brainchild of Ira Ryan and Tony Periera, another pair of well known builders. Tony was the guest framebuilder when I took the UBI course. Steve tells me that parts move back and forth between the two businesses constantly - if one is overloaded with work, the other can help out with overflow. Some smaller framebuilders in town don't have real machine tools, they can miter tubes as an outsource service. Norther Cycles (another pair of framebuilders), for example, has started sending over chain stays for mitering and slotting, which is a labor intensive process unless you have the proper tooling and jigs.
Breadwinner keeps their shop in meticulous order. Also note that they rent out a small portion to
Metrofiets, a local builder of modern cargo bikes.
Beer, bikes, and coffee blend together in Oregon. Velocult is a famous local bike shop with all three. Breadwinner recently opened a cafe that has a window into the work area, so you can sip a latte and watch your frame being produced.
It's a great place to be, and the right time to be here if you're into bicycles, especially those built in the time-honored, classic fashion.