Originally Posted by
Maelochs
Further ... there is no guarantee that every craftsman will always do a great job, or redo the job if s/he messes up ... or even notices. have dealt with my share of craftsmen.
For a long time poor quality control in Italian supercars was considered a quirky sign of hand-crafting---so if the carpet didn't fit or the glovebox handle fell off, you were supposed to feel special.
If a person can develop a relationship with a local craftsperson, and likes what that person builds, and moreover can Afford what that person builds ... have at it. As others have noted, there is no guarantee that that craftsperson is going to build something awesome---just fairly unique. You might find your mass-produced Giant rides better than you handcrafted, limited-reserve, numbered series boutique bike ... or not.
Personally I am not in that realm where I can afford or need or likely would really appreciate a really fine hand-crafted bike ... and also, as I age and my body and riding habits constantly change, it would be a bear to pick one single geometry which would last a lifetime. For me it makes a lot more sense to pay $500 for a cheap Chinese carbon fiber frame ... and if in ten years I find I cannot raise the bars high enough or reach down low enough, they make an endurance-geometry frame too.
I like the idea of supporting local craftspersons ... but it can become another fetish. To me what really matters is how I feel when I ride the bike, and if I like riding the bike I could not care less if it was mass-produced, custom-tailored, a one-off sized just for me, or a rebuild frame I just happened to have in my garage for 30 years.
If I were vain enough I could get some weird custom-name decal and slap it on the downtube and tell people it is a one-off custom ... but I am not, so I am fine with people knowing I ride a Cannondale or a Dawes or a Raleigh or a Workswell,
Really no one cares ... if anyone sees me riding their only thought will be "Why isn't there a law about people that fat wearing spandex?"
One of the things that I do besides riding bikes is play classical music. This thread touches on some very familiar refrains that I often encounter in other fora centered on musical matters--craft vs. "factory" and so forth. In fact, I've often used the same word--"fetish"--to describe the phenomenon of just how much importance many of us attach to the supposed superiority of a
personal craft, which thereby enables it to exact, in some instances, many thousands of dollars more for an instrument than could be supported by a no less fine an instrument, but one deemed more humble (and less desirable) for the fact that more than one had his or her hand in its creation.