Framebuilding and Latin

I wear fancy Rapha cycling jerseys (always purchased on clearance, btw). It all started last year when I got tired of stinky lycra and tried wearing merino wool jerseys. That 100% wool experiment didn't go over so well, especially in the summer. However, smartwool has proven to be very comfortable year round. And Rapha is known for making some of the finest smartwool bling. Anyway, Rapha also sponsors a bunch of riders who ride around the UK and USA - kinda as ambassadors of high dollar cycling clothes. Rapha commissions a bunch of indy builders to outfit their riders, which leads to the meat of this post...

I was reading some of the interviews with the frame builders and was really drawn to two of them, Richard Sachs and Matt Bracken. The rest of their interviews can be found here.

Richard Sachs:

You want be a frame builder? You don’t have a freaking clue. You don’t ride a bike, or if you do, you don’t ride fast. Or a lot. Because if you do, you realize you’ve only made 2 frames. First of all, a bike is a freaking vehicle. And you’re going make one and sell it to somebody and hope that it stays together in traffic, next year, next decade, we’re not talking about macramé or glass blowing here. This is something you put out on the road.

[snip]

You can’t be a doctor after taking a surgery crash course or by reading ‘Doctors for Dummies’. These people get some tubes and a jig and they think they’re instantly a frame builder. Well, they’re not. Not until they make 500 frames and show, after a decade or two, that they hold up. Frame building, in a way, is like Latin. Nobody speaks Latin, nobody likes Latin, except for scholars.

Matt Bracken (Independent Fabrication):

When people tell me about how much ‘soul’ or ‘love’ their bike has it makes me, as a frame builder, want to puke. I don’t care if you’re old or young, fat or skinny, experienced or pro, a fixed-gear commuter with fenders or bad-ass Record 10-speed guy on a Ti-carbon flame painted bike, its all good. People want to carry flags, the passion flag, or the technology flag, or the geek flag, but why not just a bike Flag.