Richard Sachs Cycles

[WFSTEKL]

More here -
No Life Like This Life

Does this have a mild stern list?

[einreb]

Richard,

I'd appreciate any insight you'd care to provide on the evolution and current state of what you do with your seat stay caps.

That point almost always draws my eye first on a any lugged frame.

Thanks,

Bernie

[e-RICHIE]

Richard,

I'd appreciate any insight you'd care to provide on the evolution and current state of what you do with your seat stay caps.

That point almost always draws my eye first on a any lugged frame.

Thanks,

Bernie

I know they are many examples of the part used and transitions I take it though to get to this point. All are on my Flickr pages. I'll try to find some sequence shots. Thank you.

[einreb]

I know they are many examples of the part used and transitions I take it though to get to this point. All are on my Flickr pages. I'll try to find some sequence shots. Thank you.

Thanks for the response. Maybe I phrased my question poorly. I've seen various images of the caps being shaped. What I'm curious about is how it evolved to this current form and if you've refined it the point that you are content with it.

-Bernie

[e-RICHIE]

Thanks for the response. Maybe I phrased my question poorly. I've seen various images of the caps being shaped. What I'm curious about is how it evolved to this current form and if you've refined it the point that you are content with it.

-Bernie

I am content. So much so that I now do all of the shaping after the stays are on the lug rather than after the plugs are brazed into the seat stays. Thank you.

[e-RICHIE]

Back In Mother’s Hood

This is Bobbe, my mother. A picture taken maybe three years ago. She’s 85 here.

My mom was the most beautiful woman outside of Hollywood. I say that because I’m sure others feel similarly about their moms, and I also wanna leave a small margin for error just in case. I write that she was the most beautiful because that’s how I’ll always think of her. She looks different now. Smaller. Curled. Scarred. Blued. Frail. But as always, a light shines from Bobbe that never dims. It can’t be dimmed no matter how many tubes, needles, catheters, or whatever else is thrown at her this week. It’s tough several days for my family.

Until last Sunday all was well until it wasn’t. I was called back to New Jersey by my mom’s sister. Bobbe was in the ICU room at a hospital. To my mind, what happened, why it happened, why things like this do happen – none of this matters. My mom’s quality of life took an about face that day, and today, Thanksgiving, she remains on that path.

To watch from her side, there’s now a shadow. As if a force of nature found that switch hidden for 88 years and flicked it. No one lies so still for so long, and responds to so little. Bobbe does. And I watch. My hand first on her head. Then on her hand. And back again. My words to her are about love everlasting. My thoughts reassuring Bobbe that it’s okay if she’s ready, and trying, to go to Nanny Lilly and Uncle Lou and the others, and to all the cats and dogs we’ve known too. They’re all there now. And I think my mom is trying to lift her back leg up so it joins the one already through the open window to whatever is next.

I watch in slow motion and in real time. I would walk in traffic, do anything, to make this not a thing. But how silly is that. We all have a moment when the moment is no longer. For Bobbe, my beautiful mom, that moment is now.

23, November 2017

[e-RICHIE]

On Ninth Avenue

Belmar is a special place. As a child it was a gift to me. We had a bungalow nestled behind number 216 on 9th Avenue near the ocean. For many summers. I was too young for Saturday matinees, or playing stickball with friends. I may have been five at the time. A lot of this is a memory I try to keep alive. And with each passing decade, the storylines move a bit. And this sleepy Jersey shore town becomes a larger part of my past.

During the last years of Bobbe’s life, I tried to draw her from the chair she loved so much and drive to the beach if only to view the water from the car window. When we did, If I could get her from the front seat to a bench on the boardwalk, we’d both have smiles too wide to measure. My mom and I were looking out on the Atlantic just as we did when Eisenhower was in office.

Today Deb and I parked at the corner of 9th Avenue, walked to 216 where Sadie Teitelbaum once rented to us, looked at where the Traymore Hotel stood, then over to the Mayfair Hotel for assurance that within its lobby time has stood still for half a century, and then crossed at 13th and got onto the sand. And walked. Peered. Looked east to a vast blue of sky and salt water.

I thought about connections. Mine with my mom. Ours with Belmar. Remembering how safe and right everything is when an only child and a single mother share a life. I picked up a half dozen shells because I needed something tangible. An object I could touch next week or next year that reminds of something that fades with every second. Tomorrow, when Bobbe is laid to rest, I will leave some of these shells with her.

There is a difference, a real difference, between silence and no sound at all. I heard it today in Belmar, with the wind and the waves, spending some last moments trying to find something that’s gone.

25, November 2017

[e-RICHIE]

Closure

Yesterday the family went for a late lunch at Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant a favorite joint of ours in Asbury Park. It was our way to sit shiva and toast Bobbe. Fried calamari, the table salad, Jimmy’s Special Steak, and all the drinks helped keep us lubed. We knew what loomed in less than twelve hours. It was a dark and light time all at once.

This morning, Deb and I chose to follow the Hearse as it drove north on the Garden State Parkway. I mean really. The car has Bobbe in the back. It’s not exactly DHL delivering a flatscreen television. That’s my mom in there bro’. We left at 9:15AM sharp, the two of us drafting Danny in the XTS Cadillac Armbruster Stageway – one sleek vehicle it.

While waiting at the mortuary, a flock of vultures stood watch. Many, maybe dozens, perched on nearby branches and on rooftops. Did they sense the potential within the walls of Bloomfield Cooper? Inquiring minds want to know.

By 12:15PM and with all having a moment to express something about my beautiful mother, we each took a handful of dirt and added it to the top of Bobbe’s coffin. And of course, the shells from the beach in Belmar were included.

Bobbe Sachs gave me life, led me through it, and then set me free. I’d give anything to have one more lesson, but my teacher is now gone. The rest is up to me. And that is all.

26, November 2017

[NYCfixie]

Bobbe Sachs, Ale-ha Ha-sholom.
(may she rest in peace)

[NCC1701]

Richard_

I feel badly about your loss....

I lost my Mom 25 years ago but each day I think of her and the lessons she thought me....

One of the last things she said to me was "keep your pecker up" its an old English expression meaning keep your chin up, when I think of that it makes me laugh and puts a smile on my face. It was my Mom whom could find the good in an otherwise very dark day.

So Richard I say to you "keep your pecker up"


Kirk Jackson

[Moke]

I lost mine last year. Even though it was a blessing for all of us, it is sort of hard dealing with the passage of time and parents. Sounds like you had a great relationship and hold many memories together. Best wishes Mr. Richard.

[e-RICHIE]

Reset

A conversation begins soon. A language I know but can’t speak. Grasp one word or phrase at a time. Not to be fluent. Only to exist. Comfortably. So I can get around. Get what I need. To move forward. And from right to left. To never let go of what’s behind me. Where I came from.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

The Force

There comes a time in every maker’s daily work when the anxiety level rises to the point of screaming. Maybe the words are: “What do I have to do to get to the next level?” After ten years at the bench, my thought bubbles included these. After twenty years, my hands picked up the tools and tried. Started trying. I didn’t have a place to go. I wanted to leave where I was. I convinced myself of this. Where was next? Start imagining. Grab parts. Files. Channel some inner craftsman who doesn’t exist. And force him out.

In 1992, this is what force looked like. Some parts that never were finished. Because they are finished. Years spent looking for lines and curves that moved every time I got close enough to believe I was there. Finally there. The harder I tried, the more the results stayed in the shadows. Until I finally stopped trying. And when I did, a light appeared.

We all come to work with a different vision. After so many years, I’ve forgotten what mine is. But it’s a lot easier to see it now.

All This By Hand

[e-RICHIE]

As Of Now

I think one gets to a point of being saturated with and overexposed to the process because so much of it is self-taught and from the same decades long narrative. When this happens, one has to tear it apart, deconstruct it, forget it all, believe none of it, and start over. That’s where I am.

All This By Hand

[versluijs]

Hi Richard, so sorry to hear about your mom. I've got an early frame of yours, 1978-79 I believe. It is metallic green. I'm wondering what the exact color is, as I'm hoping to have it repainted.

[e-RICHIE]

Farm to table, grass-fed, bean to bar, craft brewed, 100% Pareve, lint free frames for the cognoscenti and the patient.

All This By Hand

[ron l edmiston]

--- "the wait is the hardest part.."

ronnie

[e-RICHIE]

On Any Monday

Because assembling a bicycle isn't the same as making a bicycle.

All This By Hand

[Haldy]

On Any Monday

Because assembling a bicycle isn't the same as making a bicycle.

All This By Hand

No, it isn't. But is not the mechanic who builds the wheels and assembles the bike also working with skilled hands?

Matt

[SlowPokePete]

No, it isn't. But is not the mechanic who builds the wheels and assembles the bike also working with skilled hands?

Matt

Different
level
of
skill,
I think.

SPP