I haven't read this entire thread, so forgive me if this has already been addressed. I appreciate shops like Alex Singer and Mercian where traditional methods are still used by a small number of craftsmen to produce frames in the same basic way they have been for decades, and I see that this is a very different thing than private builders who are producing custom frames. I wonder though, how you classify someone like Doug Fattic who has gone to Europe and apprenticed with builders there to learn the craft and then returned to the U.S. to practice it. I understand that you view geography as an important factor, but when there is a clear line of continuity, does that not constitute a continuation of the tradition, especially in a craft like this where apprenticeship is such a part of the tradition? The same argument could be made regarding Faliero Masi's move to California and the builders like Brian Bayliss who came out of that shop. In general, I think there is a very strong frame building tradition in the U.S. with a few traceable lines of succession.
The other thing I was wondering about is the degree to which innovation is part of the tradition. You mentioned Paris-Brest-Paris. My understanding is that fostering innovation was a central goal behind events like PBP. So to a large extent, moving the state-of-the-art forward
is the tradition. In my mind, that puts someone like Peter Weigle and his collaboration with Jan Heine squarely in the PBP tradition, though again there's the geography factor there.
Finally, @
iab's earlier comments about custom building versus production building made me think of Sacha White and Speedvagen. Sacha White developed quite a reputation as a custom builder under the Vanilla brand, then started Speedvagen as a way to scale the business in the face of wider demand. This seems to mirror the early trajectory of companies like Colnago, Bianchi, and Pinarello, which have been mass production shops for a very long time.