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Frames may well cost more if they are hand-built. In my experience this does not equate to frame Builders pulling in riches. The investment in equipping a workshop, learning a complex trade and crafting beautiful machines is only done by extremely driven people.
I think it would be mistaken to imagine that those building cycle frames are doing so primarily from a profit motive.
My opinion is that the show is a wonderful opportunity to see the best that there is in hand crafted frames.
My father was lucky enough to get his frame built at the start of the post war light weight continental style era by what was one of the most innovative builders. But it cost him a packet and the frame builder wasn't paid much and the shop owners didn't become rich.
I think that even with what seem high prices nowadays it would represent a smaller proportion of one's income than it would have been in nineteen fifty one to my dad as an electrical engineering apprentice.
I've watched the frame building trade die out almost completely and then re-emerge in the last fifteen years. I regard it as one of the good things in the World today.
Sorry to rant
I agree that businesses should not be structured on free labour, of course I do, I'm appalled that so many jobs require some sort of internship. This makes them only accessible to the moneyed classes. I think the show is barely a business, I think it's a celebration of something that was once lost and is now found.
This is Digger's opinion and is not presented to contend or offend.
Do a skidLiterally this
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Skülly
Frames may well cost more if they are hand-built. In my experience this does not equate to frame Builders pulling in riches. The investment in equipping a workshop, learning a complex trade and crafting beautiful machines is only done by extremely driven people.
I think it would be mistaken to imagine that those building cycle frames are doing so primarily from a profit motive.
My opinion is that the show is a wonderful opportunity to see the best that there is in hand crafted frames.
My father was lucky enough to get his frame built at the start of the post war light weight continental style era by what was one of the most innovative builders. But it cost him a packet and the frame builder wasn't paid much and the shop owners didn't become rich.
I think that even with what seem high prices nowadays it would represent a smaller proportion of one's income than it would have been in nineteen fifty one to my dad as an electrical engineering apprentice.
I've watched the frame building trade die out almost completely and then re-emerge in the last fifteen years. I regard it as one of the good things in the World today.
Sorry to rant
I agree that businesses should not be structured on free labour, of course I do, I'm appalled that so many jobs require some sort of internship. This makes them only accessible to the moneyed classes. I think the show is barely a business, I think it's a celebration of something that was once lost and is now found.
This is Digger's opinion and is not presented to contend or offend.
Do a skid