Serious Bicycle Porn -- a Richard Sachs CX

I'm a bit out of the loop and haven't heard about this bike builder before. Stumbled upon a mention of him in an article in the International Herald Tribune and looked him up on the web. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Cyclocross bikes (maybe because I've gotten to watch so many pass me in cyclocross races). But I haven't ridden steel since I bought a Schwinn for $110 (earned the money mowing lawns) in the ninth grade... but this bike looks sweet!

A little tech poetry from the Sachs website: 

Any comments regarding the use of lugs must take in to account the primary task at hand—to join two steel tubes to each other. Deciding which method to employ involves either economics or emotion. Sometimes both. But rarely.

There are those who embrace the process of melting steel together with a bead, TIG welded. This group may also accept an environment in which everyone wears matching outfits. Maybe similar caps, too. Perhaps color bars on some shirt pockets to denote and differentiate status.

TIG welding is a uniform, androgynous, style-less look. In fact this is the current aesthetic of the bicycle. Welding works. It does the job. It is the fastest technique available to industry, and tech schools routinely graduate welders, thus supplying a steady stream of workers for the assembly of your next bike!

But, grab a lug and use it and you pay homage to a process chosen and perfected when the streets of time and money were less likely to intersect. And when you wouldn't find a time-clock to punch at the local framebuilders.

Sach Cyclocross