The best part about making things by hand is that you get to carefully consider how you want to approach your materials, your tools, and your process. You can add your intelligence and your insight along the way to produce an object that simply couldn’t exist without your hand in the making. Or as Steve Jobs put it you can try “to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.”

The flip side is that you can also add your inexperience and your miscalculations and end up with a mistake. When the hand and the brain are connected in the making of things, it can be a blessing or a curse.

I picked up the fork that I had just built the day before. It was my first unicrown fork. I cleaned it up and admired it from all angles. It looked good! And then I discovered that it was shorter than I had designed it to be. I soon saw my error, and realized what I need to do differently. But there is no getting around it, the fork I was so proud of turned out to be a dud.

The generous view is that making mistakes is part of the learning process. And it is commonly said that the best craftspeople are the ones who are continually learning. These twin platitudes are a shallow consolation when I need to both learn and produce on a tight timeline. I don’t have a lot of time to be messing around building lovely but too-short forks.

The less generous, brutally pragmatic view is that I could have sourced a fork from a supplier that has nearly identical specifications, from the rake, to the span, to every last braze-on. It would have been less expensive to buy that complete fork than to pay for my materials and paint costs, let alone my time. Let alone twice. But I wanted to build it. I wanted to build it because I had the opportunity to learn something new. I also was convinced I could build a fork that was more beautiful than the one I could buy, despite having never done so.

So, I will go out into the shop early tomorrow morning and buckle down until I have my second ever unicrown fork. What will be visible in the finished product? Refinement or beauty? Maybe, maybe not. But it will be the fork that simply wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t built the first one. That will be good enough.

It’s an ambitious goal. And today we’re going to take it one step further.

Like all custom builders out there, we have been students of the craft honing the design and fabrication of the bikes that we build. This takes hours of work, effort, and imagination. But we have also spent years studying the language of the body on the bike. Any builder can tell you that fabrication skills take years to develop. And any bike fitter can tell you that you need to do hundreds of bikes fits to understand the intricacies of the body on a bike. It is kind of like learning how to be a machinist and physical therapist at the same time.

And it’s something we have been doing this for the last four years.

Today we are announcing the Lust line: a limited production run of bikes that incorporate all that we understand about the relationship between women’s bodies and their bikes.

(Prototype)

A project more than a year in development, the Lust line is going to start with the release of our most requested bike: The Little Black Dress This design is informed and inspired by the ideal riding positions of real women and offers an elegant alternative to the standard bike shop fare. It won’t work for everyone, but it will work for a lot of women.

The best part: these bikes will be less expensive than our custom options and they will be delivered in just a few months.

LEARN MORE about the design process and the LUST line here.

I was there.  Not in spirit, like someone sitting with coffee and a waffle at the kitchen table thinking cheerful thoughts for a hearty bundled-up peloton.  No, I was there in the wind-chapped flesh.  Only I was a half mile across the highway, a half hour late, and in an industrial park of misery.

For brevity’s sake, let’s call that Hillsboro.

In retrospect, I can see I was ill-prepared.  It wasn’t what I didn’t bring – I brought my earnest intentions, a buttered muffin, and a Max ticket. . . It was what I failed to leave behind that did me in.  I deboarded at Orenco Station with the useless assumption that NW 231 st surely mustn’t be too far from NW 235th, where you were all waiting cozily to begin your ride.  I set out, at 13 minutes to nine, to find the next block, orient myself, and head your way.  After five minutes, it became clear that the street grid was pocked with condos in the way you might imagine a really rough patch of the space time continuum to be pocked with black holes.  I sought a native guide, a woman with an eager terrier and a snappy jogging outfit.  Her directions were confident, her hand gestures were vigorous, and she shouted over the sounds of wind and traffic “head that way, you’ll see signs!”

Yes I did.  I saw signs for HWY 26, a tile warehouse, Ocean Beaches, any number of likely contractors for the US Defense Department and the garage door opening industry.  I squinted into the sun, and like a dog circling three times before settling down for a nap, I circled around and around before settling down into a serious funk.

I wanted an urban planner.  I wanted an explanation.  I could have been dropped into the middle of Paris and gotten directions from a mime troupe with better results.  Or at least found my way to a cafe au lait, a pain au chocolate, a bon jour!

I pulled the phone from my jacket and called home.  Austin consulted the internet, and I was once again on my way.  But by the time I arrived at the Longbottom Coffee and Tea, it was 9:47 and you were gone.  The Portland Velo ten o’clock ride and a group of triathletes were milling about speaking breezily of recovery zones and electrolytes, so I pointed myself into the wind, and headed toward the hills.

It was too late in the game to trade up my patch kit for a suitcase of courage.  I would like to report a certain pluckiness or determination to make the best of the situation, but over the course of the next three hours, there were down trees and wrong turns.  And, as long as we are being honest here, there may have been a roadside tantrum of sorts, either the cause or the result of a pair of day-glo polar fleece mittens blown down the road like a pair of addled tumbleweeds.  But we don’t talk about that anymore.

At long last, Austin met my arrival with embraces, declarations of love, and a grilled cheese sandwich.  We took a trip to Stumptown Coffee just to be sure that both body and spirits were restored.  (Mocha, lots of whip.)

So this is just to say that I tried, and that I would still love to go for a ride.

Next Sunday?  Maybe someplace closer in perhaps?

But I did not commermorate my anniversary with blackberries and sunshine. I say, let those non-native invasives, as sweet as they may be, wither on the vine. Summer is too easy. Anyone can fall in love with a Portland summer. It’s the winter that weeds out the fickle, and the winter of 1998 proved my heart was true.

My grandfather could recall a winter or two that were wetter than 1998, but few had the heart to quibble over rain data as we approached our 40th day of rain with neither a break nor an Ark.  As a newcomer to both Portland and to being a bike messenger, whatever I lacked in experience I made up for in exposure. My rain jacket leaked, my fender was flimsy, and my corduroy knickers soaked up water like a luxury bath towel monogrammed “ROOKIE.” Most of my waking hours that season were soggy. I grew to see the line between wet and dry as permeable and best regarded with a certain non-attachment. Comfort hardly seemed the point.

And so, this weekend with a winter storm warning in effect, I celebrated my Portland anniversary recalling the memory of my first really stupid and epic outdoor adventure.

(The author with ten years of Portland under her belt.)

Early in that first December, I has asked another messenger for some good ride routes and was given vague instructions for the Sauvie Island Loop, a thirty mile jaunt that promised a spectacular vantage point for taking in the snowy west hills. I dressed in my most technical riding gear: Levi’s polyester permaprest action slacks (cuffs rolled up), a shrunken wool v-neck, and a pair of army surplus socks.

On my way out of town, I stopped to make a purchase that I had been contemplating for months: arm warmers. I ducked into the last bike shop in city limits, and emerged with arm warmers on and $1.50 left in my pocket. As I set out, the quarters marked my cadence brightly at first, and were then drown out by the snapping of my pants and sleeves in the wind.

I turned onto the Suavie Island Bridge with a sense of purpose. I had arrived. And so had the weather. The snow on the hills that called me out had now come to join me in the lowlands. I pedaled faster to keep warm. I kept my head down in deference to the wind, and met each new stretch of road as a new shake of the snow globe. I felt the road turn rough beneath me with no evdience of progress around the island. I was in Columbia County, where potholes grow militant and take over the streets. Suddenly, this mattered. I imagined that my fingers, already numb, were now in danger of wiggling off inside my gloves. I made fists. I gave them pep talks. We bargained, and I turned my bike around.

I pulled into the Cracker Barrel, the island’s tiny fish bait and grocery store, and pulled the change out of my pocket. This would have been a swell time to ask myself, “What impulse calls us out into the wild, inspires us to do great things, only to be undone by mundane errors in judgement?” Instead, I asked myself, “What can I buy for $1.50 that keep my hands toasty for a little while?” Coffee. With sugar and non-dairy creamer (for nutritional value). I sipped slowly, trying to buy some time, but I could only feign interest in fish bait and tackle for so long. The Cracker Barrel could not save me. I had to get back on my bike.

As I headed into the wind, the coffee proved useless. I need fuel I could burn. My thoughts turned to donuts, and to the parts of me that weren’t cold. Like my elbows. Maybe I could seek refuge in my elbows pulling that last ounce of power and warmth to get me home. . . 

But it didn’t come to that. Something better happened. A woman on a road bike appeared looking warm, strong, and speedy. I learned that she was a racer, and she had no doubt seen this kind of thing before. She took pity on me and tucked me into her draft. I sat on her wheel focusing on her encouraging chatter, grateful for every minute and every mile that passed. An hour later I was home.

After a couple of donuts and a hot bath, my recovery was complete. Feeling had returned to my fingers and toes. A good feeling. They belonged to me, right where I was standing, at home in Portland.

On a rainy fall day many years ago, I was a bike messenger delivering a super rush to the courthouse. The various parties involved in the scene that ensued will tell you different stories.  This is mine:

My bike shoes always set off the metal detector, and I got in the habit of taking them off and running them through the machine in order to save time and conversation. On this particular day, that metal detector was crammed with umbrellas and coats and the line was full of soggy citizens fumbling with keys and belts. I cleared security in my pink striped socks. I had a filing for the circuit court and two minutes to get it there. “There” was the second floor, so close, yet so far. My shoes were making a slow journey through security. I assessed my options: wait for the shoes and possibly miss the deadline, or deliver the package and let the circuit court enjoy my pink striped socks.  

I left the shoes and went for it.

Bounding up the stairs in my socks, I heard a voice shout out “WAIT!” It was the security guard holding up my soggy bike shoes. I waved the file urgently, the guard nodded his assent and I was off again. I made it no further than the marble landing before I was tackled by two armed guards. They had only heard “WAIT!” and saw me continue.  

As the sheriff issued my 90 day suspension from the courthouse and snapped my picture for their files, the guard with my shoes came to my defense and urged me to clear this up with an appeal to the judge.  I was then cleard to drop off my filing upstairs.

A week later the judge ruled. The official story from the guards was that I was swearing and belligerent, so the suspension held. What had they seen in me? A zealous messenger in pink striped socks, or something a bit darker? I like to think that in a Polaroid buried deep in Multnomah County records, my eyes reveal the truth to the camera.

All I can say is that I eat bacon, and I am bigger than I look.

I got up, let the dog out, and jumped into the shower. No sooner had I pulled on my favorite pair of shop pants and an old t shirt, than a voicemail appeared blinking on my telephone. I hadn’t had my coffee, and already I was missing calls. It was Bicycling Magazine. They wanted to ask me a few questions to go along with the photos they took a couple of weeks back. Where is that coffee? Are we really out of sugar?

I returned the call, left a voicemail, and drank some coffee while checking my emails. A customer had a few questions about her bike design which presented some interesting possibilities and a couple of conversations later, we were looking at an intriguing and innovative solution. The computer, which was going to be packed into the backpack to head down to the shop, was now plugged into the wall while I plugged my ideas into BikeCAD Pro to try them out.

This design would be pretty new, so I got on the phone to review some of finer points and a few calls later I found myself talking to Grant Petersen. He asked me a couple of questions to gauge what he was dealing with, and then he asked point blank if I was mostly using carbon (he said “plastic”) forks on my bikes. I said I’ve used them on two bikes. “Well, then you are only going to hell twice.” I hoped he wasn’t the final authority on that, so we moved on to bottom bracket drops for 650B bikes and he offered his brake reach-centric fork designing method.

Back in the kitchen, the dog needed a treat. I administered a frozen treat-stuffed kong, and got back to BikeCAD. Since I was already at the computer, I started digging into some methods of making some of the technical decisions easier on my customers. A little while later, I was neck deep into Basecamp and had enlisted a couple of customers to be guinea pigs.

Uploading pictures of cable routing choices for mixte frames, I got the call I had been waiting for. Bicycling Magazine had questions for Sweetpea. Sweetpea was on her second cup of coffee and was ready for a lively interview. Talking about bikes and why women deserve the best gets me pretty stoked. It gets me thinking about all the really fantastic women who are in line for a Sweetpea, and reminds me just how lucky I am to be doing this.

After the interview I called Michael Sylvester, my bicycle fitting mentor to check in about some of our upcoming Sweetpea fittings. We went over some outstanding decisions and decided to gather some information and meet back for a bike design jam session. Next thing I knew his 4 o’clock appointment was calling. Really? Was it that late? I hadn’t even looked into the lathe purchase I am thinking of making for my new shop, let alone touched metal all day. I spent the next chunk of my afternoon coordinating a shop visit to look at some machinery and getting an education in the benefits of large spindle bore diameters on metal lathes. (To sum it up once and for all, bigger is better.)

By the time Austin came home and the puppy was roused from her slumber beneath the kitchen table, I had packed in a full day and barely left the kitchen. When you come home brushing metal shavings off your sleeves and wiping oil smudges off your forehead, you know that you’ve been making something. On days like this, work is a bit less tangible. Important work? Yes. But it doesn’t quite feel real unless something is getting bent, chopped, brazed or filed. Its days like this where I have to remind myself that if its a small failure not to touch metal, then there are times when you just have to fail harder.

A long while back, Natalie and I thought it would be important to take up some bad habits to offset all the cycling, running, and multivitamins we take; so we decided to start smoking.  We now smoke a cigar together every six months or so.  At first, I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. . . that is, be a smoker.  What I found was that it wasn’t that hard to do, but it was hard to do casually.  The first couple of times we fumbled around with things, and I think we have the hang of it now.  But a couple of months ago, I was taking a slow draw off a cigar when something hit me.  It was the taste in my mouth and the smell in my nose.

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as this the what the whole deal is about.  But what was so remarkable was that in a single moment I was instantly reminded of my grandfather.  He used to smoke cigars regularly, and as a kid when he would lean in and give me a kiss on the cheek, I would be able to taste the smell in my nose.  It was only when he leaned in close when that this would happen, and it was something I had not thought about in nearly twenty years.  And now, it reminds me of him and conveys a certain perspective: I don’t just remember him, I remember him when he was close.  So now when Nat and I cozy up to a big cigar, I can lean back and remember my grandfather.  And it’s nice.

I would have never been reminded of this had we not done something entirely new and completely out of character.  Which of course brings me to the subject of onions.  When I was growing up, I would look at my parents completely aghast as they consumed raw onions on things like sandwiches and salads.  This in my mind was tantamount to eating dynamite.  And I was recently reminded of the horror I felt in college when I saw a friend of mine who during a play had to eat an onion like an apple.  So imagine my surprise when at breakfast some raw onion made its way into my mouth accompanied with some bagel, cream cheese, capers, tomato, lettuce and lox.  Maybe it was the combination that made it possible, but I really liked it.  I think that the feeling I felt afterward is termed cognitive dissonance.  I guess I knew that tastes change as you get older, but what I didn’t realize was how those changes are connected to things that have been deep down a long time.

Its summer.  Please take a minute to wash your helmet straps.  The non-biking public appreciates it.

Austin and I have long discussed the pharmaceutical spectrum of performance enhancement.  I mean, where are on the line are Flintstone Vitamins and EPO?  Is an oxygen tent used to simulate high altitude training really so different from blood doping if it has a similar effect?  Where does the glory of human potential turn into a miracle of science?

Like everyone else, I too want my star athlete at the top of his game.  Therefore today, in order to shed the burden of guilt, I would like to make the following confession:

For the last three months, I have systematically implemented a regimen to enhance the athletic performance of my star athlete, Austin.  In close coordination with local coffee brewers (see Exhibit A) I have been supplying him with Stumptown Coffee in the morning, a sack lunch, and a snack in order to support his daily bike commute.

(Exhibit A)

There is no yellow jersey to return.  No other teammates to implicate.  All I can offer as an explanation is that the pressures of Bike to Work Week were just too great to overcome.  We commit ourselves to riding clean from here on out, and hope all our fans can forgive us.