The shop doors will be closed, so if you were thinking of dropping by for a visit, it'll have to wait until my return.
All online orders (flask holsters & handlebars, etc.) will continue to be shipped
Here it is -- the long awaited (or not really all that long awaited) video of the frame building class at UBI. The class was from 31 January to 11 February, and each student (8 of them) built their very own bicycle frame. This is a time lapse video that covers day 5 through day 10 of the class in about 8 minutes.
The camera shows seven of the eight work benches, and there are no breaks delineating the passage of days. It starts on day five and moves through the final day, and then myself and several students leave the school and ride our bikes down the road to my workshop for a brief tour (which is at the very end when the camera view goes dark).
I think it's interesting seeing the progression of the bike frames as they come together. Everybody looks so busy! They did, in fact, work very hard, and each one of them has a bike frame to show for it. Enjoy the video!
Frame Building Class Feb. '11 from Joseph Ahearne on Vimeo.
This video shows day five through day ten of the UBI frame building class I taught from 31 Jan. to 11 Feb. There were eight students in the class, but the camera could only take in seven of the benches (sorry Daniel!).
There are no breaks in the video as one day moves into the next, so you just have to pay attention to what people are wearing -- if you see someone jump into a different outfit, then a new day has started.
I could have edited out more of the times where no one is working, but I feel like those give you a chance to take in the benches and the progress as the bicycle frames come together.
I've found it helpful to focus on one person's workbench for a few seconds at a time to watch their progress, because the whole view of everyone working can be very "busy."
I hope you enjoy it!
Music by Audion
Students & Their Hand Built Frames
My second frame building class at UBI is finished. My first post-class impression is that it went really well. Everybody came away with a frame they built with their own hands and they all seemed really pleased with what they’d accomplished. I haven’t taught enough classes to know if this is going to happen to me, personally, every time, but I feel fairly attached to this group. We spent a lot of time together over the past two weeks. We’ve gone through it together, you know -- it's kind of like childbirth -- and I’ve watched as they’ve struggled to grasp a huge load of new information and then translate this into a tangible, useful machine. It requires not only a sustained level of concentration that most people aren’t accustomed to, but also the physical practice of transforming ideas into steal using heat and tools in ways that most of these people hadn’t ever done before. It can be stressful, and it’s really tiring. Two weeks is a long time to intently focus your attention on any new subject, and this group was awesome. And they did it. They worked it out and built their frames and I think each of them had a good experience doing it.
Full Size Frame Drawing
For myself, I learned some things about the process of teaching, and feel like I became a little better at breaking down the steps of building a bike frame into bite-sized portions so that others can follow along. There are some parts of the process that I want to focus on and improve, and there are always things that I can learn about how to present such a large amount of information in a way that doesn’t put people to sleep or stress them out and mire them in so many possibilities that it immobilizes their brains. This really happens, and people seem especially susceptible in the afternoon, an hour or so after lunch when food is still heavy and soporiferous, and their minds and hands have been active since early in the morning. There were a couple of times when I prattled on about some bike this-&-that and saw people’s eyes spiral off into a sort of semi-conscious open-eyed state that reminds one of zombies or the severely damaged, and I had to stop talking and snap my fingers in front of their eyes, send them back to their work benches to move around, file, slot and burn more steel to stay awake.
The "Classroom"
Teaching is an art form unto itself. Group psychology and all that. I feel like I did a decent job of it, and I enjoy it, and want to keep doing it. There’s a lot to learn from each class, and I’m going to work to refine what I do and how I do it. Just like anything, I guess. It really makes me respect those people I’ve come across in my life who’ve had that special ability to teach, to share ideas in a way that invites people to learn.
I want to thank each of you who were in my class for putting up with me and for sticking it out and building yourselves a bike. That’s really something to be proud of. I won’t name you all here, but each of you did a great job. Here below are a few more photos of the class. And yes, coming very soon is the video…
A lot of places have been getting hammered by snow recently. I just found this picture on the web. Somebody has the right idea when it comes to the snow in the midwest. May as well make the best of it: Change your tires, fill your flask and go for a ride.
Snow Tires & Flask Holster
This image was found in Big.Col's flickr photos.