I think this is pretty important for people to consider. If you really have ambitions of being one of the few framebuilders that makes their living from framebuilding, it doesn't make too much sense to expose the learning process to the scrutiny of history. I wish you had told me this 35 years ago. Some people get annoyed with me for saying stuff like this, but I think it would be a luxury well worth the cost if the first 4 frames I built were under my control today. The rest of the frames I built as a beginner say "Trek" on them, so it's not even sensible to worry about them. I don't think it makes sense to try to have sales fund the learning process.

When I tried to start back up again a couple of years ago, I really got ahead of myself on this score. I should have spent more time trying to figure out what I wanted my identity as a framebuilder to be. Still confused about that.