You might want to begin your search with Sam Markovich at Peloton Cyclery in St. Charles, MO. He has put a lot of effort into getting equipment and knowledge for bicycle fitting. He took my 3-day intro to framebuilding class and was an outstanding student in catching on to how to braze. I’m not sure where he is now with his framebuilding ambitions but he would certainly know if there were others in your area.

I’ve had more than a dozen framebuilding students from the Chicago area take one of my framebuilding classes. They are in various stages of making it a business. Strangely Chicago is not an area with full time builders. There is a group of part time builders (including some of my students as well as those that went to UBI) that share a coop space at a place called Bubbly.

My shop is in Niles, Michigan about 90 miles east of downtown Chicago. It is an Amtrak stop on the Chicago/Detroit run. Interestingly about a third of my framebuilding class students come by train. My waiting list is too long for serious consideration but you might want to see if my assistant Herbie is a possibility. He helps me teach classes and you can find pictures of his work on flickr under Helm Cycles.

Now if you are really adventuresome, you could make your own frame in one of my classes. A typical class is 2 weeks long and the most commonly made type of bicycle is some kind of commuter like the one you described. I also teach a shorter one-week class where we make a city bike and a longer 3-week class for those that might want to be framebuilders some day.

In Indianapolis there is Tim O’Donnell at Shamrock Cycles. There are a lot of very good builders in Minneapolis, Minnesota but that might be too far to meet your “local” definition. It is a Amtrak stop however.