Richard Sachs Cycles

[jerk]

even ronnie won't like that.

[ron l edmiston]

even ronnie won't like that.

like, hell --- with a smile, in the world i came from ---:

ya communicate your mission to create a special product, for a special need from a special technology -- race proven for yo everyday driving --- "better than it has to be.."
your sku established, marketing in tune / right synchronized marketing gears and word of mouth..
don't play the "mega boy" game of voulme and relegate yourself to a commodity..
"Percieved Value.." "Lower Volume.." & escalate your selling price $'s..

ronnie

[dbrk]

Sachs for sale. Today only.

Got my first query. I should have added, "from my cold, dead hands." But then I'd be askin' for it.

[gggross]

Atmo reMission Statement

Every bicycle begins with a carefully selected blend of steel tubes: rider and frame-builder working together toward a unity of beauty and functionality. Each frame is built to the customer’s specifications, as well as my high standard of quality. I wouldn't build anything I wouldn't ride. I build bicycle frames because of the unlimited potential of travel, design, lifestyle, craftsmanship and the view from the handlebars. They are all a result of a love affair with the bicycle as a tool for discovery, a vehicle of efficiency and one of the most elegant machines that man has ever made. My goals in frame building are simple good riding bikes. Bicycles are for riding. Each tube is hand-selected for the rider and type of bike being made and then hand mitered and fitted for the perfect weld site. I use time-proven, traditional construction methods, but this does not mean these are old world, heavy non-performance oriented bikes. The frames are pinned together (which is a skill no longer used) brazed in a vice and then filed to give you the handmade bicycle. I use silver to bond my lugs and tubes. Silver has a very low melting temperature. When a steel frame is built with silver, the matrix of the steel is left virtually unchanged and its strength unaffected. The goal at is to create unique bikes that makes your pulse race. A visually simple design is often surprisingly difficult to execute. Every buyer starts out by filling out a comprehensive questionnaire intended give me a general idea of what type of cyclist you are, and uncover any special needs or desires you might have. To create your frameset, I combine the finest modern steel alloy tubing with strong and beautiful lugged joints—producing a stunning, one-of-a-kind frame built just for you. I am the sole builder, so each frame is hand cut and mitered by me. I make each frame with the minimal amount of fixtures. My goal as a builder is simple: it is to deliver an outstanding bicycle that will make you want to get out and ride. Yes, the end product is stunning but the beauty is integral, functional - more than just a shiny head badge. Each frame strikes a balance between weight and stiffness while still keeping that steel ride that is unrivaled. It is my passion to combine traditional methods and materials with a contemporary view towards building bicycles that are above all useful, elegant, and timeless.

OK, after reading that, any questions boys and girls?

[GrantM]

OK, after reading that, any questions boys and girls?

Is April fools over yet?

-g

[e-RICHIE]

Is April fools over yet?

-g

i'll move the post over to this thread when i am done drinking atmo.
long day here.

[SeanEasley]

... i will question everything. why do we have to do this, or that restaurant is too far to drive to, or i'm too tired - why can't we stay home, yada yada blah blah blah. i don't know when in my life the racing and the fitness became so tethered to my happiness and self-worth, but it certainly gained a level or three during and after my 2009 campaign. i want to be that person forever. i want to spend all week with names and faces in my cross hairs, and then show them all who's boss twice a weekend. until you know that feeling, that of winning (or, at least, being in control) you'll wonder why anyone would care about it at all. for now, with less than five rides in my legs, very little will matter, make me happy, or drive me, until i can get the confidence back.

I might just cut this and paste to the 'fridge in an effort to help my wife and kids understand me a little bit better...or at least that person that I am just before and during racing season.

Glad to hear the fire is still lit for you and that if we play our cards right we can all still have at least a few good seasons left in us.

[e-RICHIE]

i posted about this once but am unable to locate it, so i'll start again.
here was the text -

This is the 566th RS branded frame atmo and was made circa 1981. See the line in the rule book for further details. It was one of two frames I made for a couple, and this was the smaller one. To the far right of the specs (near to the serial number) you'll see the word "weird" in the area normally reserved for the paint selection. Yeah - even back then I was an opinionated eff.

The bicycle has been in regular use lo all these years until recently when it met its fate in a garage versus Yakima rack moment. I'll replace the fork blades, send it all to the paint shop, and get this bad girl back on the highway atmo.

PS This is an all original paint scheme. Imagine seeing the matching pair on your next ride?

i added some updated pictures to the flickr set as JB delivered the repaint today.

[e-RICHIE]

my pal tom officer, a pal snce 1974, and one of the most successful U.S. racers from that era. he's had at least four of
my frames over the years, most recently during a comeback 4-5 seasons ago when, after vowed to lose some 60 pounds
of himself, came all the way back to put the hurt on cats once again - in Pro 1+2 events as well. this pic is from 2008 atmo.

[e-RICHIE]

Where do ideas come from - and where do mine originate? With so much of my life spent with and around bicycles, as well as being a maker of them, I wonder about this. I arrived on the industry's doorstep by accident and very ill prepared, and have managed to eke out nearly four decades of a career from it all. Some of it could be attributed to beginner's luck. But those early, innocent days of the 1970s are long gone and I am not. I’m here, still enjoying the trade, the lifestyle, and all things that come with making, riding, and racing bicycles. What cards did I play right to make the cut?

Bicycles don't ever really change much. There are the wheels. A drive train. Some components that make it all easier to pedal forward and to stop. And the most important component - a rider. As the years pass, the industry finds ways to make newer, lighter, and sexier bicycles, but they're still just bicycles. When I first became enthused with riding, I almost simultaneously embraced the bicycle too. The activity as well as the tool for it drew me in. But I was only 17 or so and had no real cycling related influences. There was no catalyst to invite me further into this new hobby. I liked it, and it made me feel good. Was this enough of a reason to let the needle in? Perhaps it's the best reason to do anything at all.

When I set out to make bicycles, the first steps involved finding a way to England so I could follow someone else's path. I didn't really want to make bicycles, or learn about making bicycles; the time line began when I was beside myself with disappointment. A position for a bicycle mechanic appeared in the Village Voice. Without so much as calling the number or pondering the scenario, I left the Port Authority terminal on 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue with a one way ticket on a Greyhound bus to get a job in Vermont. I didn't get it. To avenge the situation, somehow I decided that making bicycles trumped fixing them, and I was going to show these cats (the ones who ran the classified in a newspaper circulating some seven hours south, I might add...) that I mattered. I compiled a list of known bicycle makers in England and wrote to each expressing a desire to learn the trade in return for (my) free labor. I ended up in London within a year of first boarding that bus.

It wasn't as if I had an industry background, or a body of work, or some inkling that I, Richard, could possibly bring something new to the table. I was raw. I was beyond raw. I spent my formative years in classrooms and on campuses, rather than learning trades or taking classes at a vocational school. When I arrived in southeast London to begin a bicycle maker's life, I really had no idea I was doing such a thing at all.

In the years since, I wonder how I made it last. I once mentioned that my life was like a balloon that the wind blew around, and then around some more. I am also on record as saying that one of the reasons I never drifted away was because I was too stupid to see the warning signs. And I meant that. But all in all, I like making, riding, and racing bicycles, and the pleasure it all gives me feels good.

But do love and good feelings comprise enough of a cushion to ride out one's entire adulthood (so far)? Is this a formula for not just happiness but commercial success as well? As with my humble and almost accidental entrance to the trade, the years that followed were also uncharted. Despite that I enjoy making bicycles and have felt this way all along, it's fortunate that others also liked the ones I make. Almost from day one, I had clients, an order queue, and no shortage of media coverage. It all works well in harmony to sustain a business and to make a guy like me feel affirmed in his choices. The truth is, though, I never felt as if I was doing anything different. I am nothing if not the receiver of all of my earlier experiences, all the secrets I was told, all the processes I saw at the workbenches of the folks who showed me, as well all the lessons taught in the classrooms I've sat. Everything I do, or introduce into my brand's vocabulary, has roots somewhere. Am I a borrower - a stealer? I don’t knowingly push a boundary or bring something to the market that I can cite as the work of another person. Nothing comes from a place I can recall ever having visited. Ideas just flow and I go with them. Are these the rearranged plans and secrets of those who came before me? Most likely, yes. At what point do they become mine? I wrestle with this.

Appropriation is a word I love. It speaks to me because it's a kinder, gentler word to use when borrowing, copying, and stealing would send the wrong message (or maybe the right message in some instances...). I think the act of appropriating best explains why my brand has endured, and also why my lifestyle has too. My bicycles and how I have presented (and represented) them have roots in all that came before me. My influences, choices, and biases are a result of my path and the teachers I have met on it. Family, friends, rabbis, professors, fellow workers, classmates, and every visual that has ever made my radar - I tap this deep well whenever a new idea comes to mind. I can't think of any gems that didn't come from somewhere else. Nothing is original.

This brings me to another thought about my life and my bicycles. Fashion designer Marc Jacobs added the following caption to a photograph that appeared in the style section of the Sunday New York Times. The text resonates so much with me that I find myself clinging to it often.

"Appropriation is a totally and actual way of creating. Every field works to a certain extent in that way, and I think one is absolved of being a thief or a fraud when one fesses up to what informs one's work. I always get this quote from Chanel wrong, but the gist of it is that he who insists on his own creativity has no memory. I don't think it's necessary to say how fantastically original one is, and if one does, one only has to dig in the past to find out who came up with that idea. Innovation is an evolutionary process, so it's not necessary to be radical all the time."

I am not Richard; I am all the people I have met and all the events that have shaped me, especially the ones that put the air in my balloon. I have taken from all of you.

[lex]

Nice way to define Art man,
It would have taken me years to pin those thoughts down

After I finished reading it I couldn’t help but think of the sense of urgency I feel when an Idea pops into my head. I don’t think its just in my head but more that its in the collective consciousness so to speak and my head happened to kind of bump into it on its way to other heads.
Believing that really pushes me to make the things I think of come to life before the next…
well you know
Just thinking out loud really
Thanks for posting that
BTW I’m going to steal that MJ quote. Its brilliant. Just wanted to put that out there.

[Joel Benjamin L]

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes

[lex]

IF: nanos gigantium hureris insidentes + Sic Transit Gloria = Max Fisher + Ronny Blume
Then: Ben and Jerry + plane vanilla must =

[e-RICHIE]

so psyched right now atmo -

[lex]

Gets it!

"I like your nurse's uniform, guy."
"These are O.R. scrubs."
"O, R they?"

[e-RICHIE]

a recent interview in peloton, originally split between its site and its third print issue, now lives in its entirety here atmo -
Artisans: Richard Sachs | RICHARD SACHS CYCLES




.

[e-RICHIE]

G-10 macromania atmo -

[e-RICHIE]

frames waiting to be built up atmo -

[DCT]

richard

hows the training for the vsaon ballers ride coming?

[e-RICHIE]

richard

hows the training for the vsaon ballers ride coming?

i passed the 300 mile mark this week (that's 300 miles since the natz last december).
get out of my way - i will be ready atmo.