A photo of me on my Surly steel touring bicycle
So I have a little secret, I love bicycles–the aesthetics of a nice clean “fixed” gear, the geometry, speed, independence, solitude, the people you meet when traveling, the health benefits, the environmentalism of it and the list goes on and on.
With that said, I’ll be putting together a financial report to explore the expense and feasibility of gaining the necessary education, skills, and tools to work towards opening a shop where I design and build bicycles. My initial thoughts for the project were to try and conceive all the necessary steps in designing, building, and operating a shop–you know, the shops that have the bicycles in the windows, the ones that maintain and fix things; well mine is not going to be about that but about design and constructing the frames. I felt that by trying to conceptualize all the necessary steps in achieving the end goal of own and operating a full fledge bicycle business, was just too much.
So this project will focus more on a studio like goal of owning a small shop/culture center for building bicycles. I envision myself to be a bicycle builder that is not about the elite, but about the masses. Of course it would be great to have the business so that I was solely building bicycles for my annual income, but in actuality, I imagine I will have a 40 hour week job and build custom frames and bicycles on the side; as a way to supplement my primary income.
Like I mentioned above, I want to focus on the average Joe and the ordinary Alice. I want to focus on bicycle construction that is affordable, durable, and fashionable. I envision my frames lasting a lifetime. They will be utility oriented so that people can hop on my bicycle for everyday errands, like grocery shopping, doing laundry, small business deliveries, and all the alike. They will also be customary so that the consumer will have a personal fit along with being able to order specific options for various activities: racks, trailers, carts, and etc. I also want to build for people with disabilities. These options would something of this manner: tricycles for the individuals with balance problems, electric assist motors for difficult hills, and other appropriate modifications that are within the boundaries of my abilities.
Here are some links that will convey to you the types of bicycles that I want to build:
- Kona Africabike 1.0
- Sport Utility Bicycles
- Surly Steel Bikes, this is what I ride!
- Three wheel electric assist
I’ve come to understand that there’s a multitude of people out there with a multitude of body shapes and sizes. Therefore, it makes the utmost since that there exist builders conscious of these needs. I want to be one of those builders…
This project will be a good opportunity to find out all the information needed to make this dream come to true at some point in my life. I’m hoping by the time I’m 30, I’ll have the education, skills, the place and time to get this business off the ground. So that gives me about 7 years to be prudent in my actions. I’ll have to work hard, budget well, and keep my life simple.
I’ll try to conceptualize all the necessary expenses needed so that I can make this dream manifest.
Here are some links that I’ve found that may help me along my way.
Sweetpea Bicycles – This is a great builder in Portland, Oregon and I want to apprentice with them. I have yet to contact Natalie about such an endeavor, because I think I should first go through formal training before trying to work with professionals. I have expressed interest in this builder because she specializes in building for women. Her slogan: “Not a bike for all women. A bike for you.” I know when I attend United Bicycle Institute (UBI), a vocational bicycle school here in Oregon, that I will be taught how to build frames for men; because during the 14 day training, you learn how to build a steel bicycle frame that suits your dimensions. Thus being a man, I will learn the skills required to build for other men. So I thought it would be beneficial to work with a woman in the field that specializes for women. This way I can gain the nuances that many women are looking for, but just can’t seem to find them in the mass produced bicycles like Trek or Giant. Furthermore, I believe this will help increase potential buyers and profits.
I now have a local builder in Portland that I can gain insight from and a school in Ashland where I can obtain the skills required to be an excellent builder, I now just need a place to purchase my steel from. This is where I turn to the Henry James website on the Internet for high quality steel tubes. He has been in the business for a long time and many people say that his steel should be the only ones used. He also sales high quality jigs that I want to use someday, however, I will be making my own during the beginning years of my business. The remaining aspects of the business are finding the tools needed to build and the space to do it in. However, I will explore this later on…
One obstacle that may deter my business is the lack of financial resources. I will be graduating College with little debt and so that’s a plus, but I do not have any parents that I can receive help from. I will literally have to pull myself up by my bootstraps to gain good credit that will allow me to take out loans. However, this is all feasible, because I’m determined and I really feel that this is one calling in my life. Of course, building frames will be something I do on the side while I acquire the experience needed to really make a name for myself in the industry, but during the meantime, I will have to get a good paying job live simple without the desire for many material objects, thus allowing for me to save tremendous amounts of money. I have produced a budget for my finances so that I have any idea of where I’m at and how long it will take before I can make all this reality.
My current projection of my annual expenditures is right around 15,500 dollars a year. Below is a list that I compiled using Microsoft Excel:
This estimate is a projection of the expenses that will accrue while living in Portland, Oregon. I suspect that It will be roughly 300 dollars more. Below is a current ledger of my expenses in Corvallis, Oregon:
I find it really interesting to expenses this way. Producing an organized ledger of my finances has helped me view them in a different manner. You know they say, “a picture says a thousand words,” well it’s true about your finances.
Now that I have explored what my expenses are like, I then have to begin to explore my income options. Once I graduate OSU with a Bachelors, I suspect that I will make right around 16 dollars and hour. I have adjusted for state and federal taxes.
Based on my calculations from the Federal Tax Calculator and the Oregon state tax website, I have determined the amount of money I will make after taxes.
Now if I do a quick subtraction:
I find that I will be saving roughly 9,307 dollars a year. This of course is ideal and I’m sure other expenses will surface that I am unprepared for, but at least give me a jumping off point.
Now onto discussing education and tools needed to reach my goal of building custom bicycles.
I plan on attending UBI as mentioned above so that I can become professionally certified in various areas of bicycle frame construction and shop operations. Each class is a two week course with an intensive curriculum that includes bookwork and hands-on experience. The first class I’ll be taking is the shop operations class. This is all about how to maintain the components on a bicycle–from the derailers to the brakes. They also teach you shop management which will be useful for when I decide to take the next step of opening my own shop. The next two classes are the fun ones! Chromoly brazing and TIG welding. These classes are all about design and frame construction using various techniques. The brazing class is the one that I’m very excited and interested about. Basically, brazing is a technique where you heat the steel to a very hot temperature and then you take a piece of solder like material and you touch it to the very hot steel. The molecules do their things within the material binding everything together. To dumb things down, constructing a bicycle using the brazing technique is like putting together a very complicated model. You first obtain the dimensions of the person you are building for and then you purchase the corresponding steel tubing and investment cast lugs and then assemble. Sounds easy, but it takes an eye for detail and a steady hand to produce quality brazes.
The TIG welding part is something I know nothing about, but I imagine it would be beneficial for me to know.
So that is the UBI training. The other training will be at a community college of some sort. I chose LBCC because I have attended there before and I know the campus well. I also have known people that have gone through the welding classes and they speak highly of the instructors.
I do not know it is entirely beneficial for me to go through and get the one year welding certificate, but I figure it would help me out with understanding shop operations and all the tools and equipment that is available for use. Moreover, I figure the education can hurt and it can only make me a stronger bicycle builder. I figure I will either take this before or after the UBI training, not really sure…
The final component of reaching my goal is actually obtaining the tools needed to build:
- Brazing tool kit
- Park Tools: stand, professional tool kit, and wheel truer.
- Air Compressor
- Air Paint Brush Kit
- Frame Jig
Here is a spreadsheet of the estimated expenses, I used Microsoft Excel to produce the ledger:
So there it is, my dream to gain the education, skills and tools to build professional bicycles for all types of people. I haven’t financed the space, because at this point that is too far into the future. I know a lot of people build out of their garages, so I figured I could do this too once I set roots down somewhere and purchase a house.
This was a very fun project in that it allowed me to conceptualize what it will take to do something like this and then map it out with a spreadsheet program. Again, I hope to be building by the time I’m 30…check me out someday when you need a custom bicycle!
