ARTICLES, PRESS RELEASES & REVIEWS
The Rebel King of Custom Bikes
Richard Sachs, the master bike builder, doesn’t do high-performance materials (just steel). But for a hand-built bike from him, you must wait years and pay top dollar. Here’s why. Len Janssen wanted a bike built just for him. So a few years ago he made the trip to...
A Visit To Richard Sachs
Well, I just had a great chat with Richard Sachs at his workshop in a very quiet part of Warwick, Massachusetts. If anyone could give me advice it’s Richard, as he’s an accomplished and successful frame builder with decades of experience. Richard cuts a crown race on...
Interview with Richard Sachs: :Peloton Magazine
In the history of American frame builders perhaps few names are as well known as that of Richard Sachs. He and his work has come to be synonymous withe the craft itself. To many, he is an object lesson in how to be a successful one-man band. With more than 30 years in...
Don’t fix it, if it isn’t broken
A little Cyclingnews.com press from NAHBS 2011: Richard Sachs' seven-year waiting list hasn’t been earned by virtue of offering the latest features and constantly chasing the elusive target of cutting-edge technology. In fact, the header on his web site proudly...
Polka Dots And Moonbeams
the title, you may be cheered to note, has little or nothing to do with what follows; the polka dots bit could conceivably be a touch misleading, given their importance to anthony charteau and thus to colnago, or perhaps, at a stretch, even to a robert millar...
Two Wheels
The world’s best bicycles are American, and made of steel I didn’t know it at the time, but my first bicycle came in the waning years of a sort of revolution. Over the decade The Beatles played together – from 1960 to 1970 –the American bike market grew slowly from...
we make these. buy one.
people in glass houses are generally advised against throwing stones, partly a euphemism against criticising practices that one is also guilty of, but doubtless more officially thought of as a part of the encroaching health and safety malady that seems to have...
Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle
Throughout more than three decades as a builder, Richard Sachs has made primarily one kind of bicycle (for racing) in one kind of material (steel) painted in one color (red). And yet he sees nothing repetitive in this approach. An idealist who sets out to create the...
Guardians of the Flame
The introduction of methods that industrialized bicycle manufacture inevitably led to a reduction in hand-crafted production especially for competition models with proven success. Industrialization and the increase in the number of bikes produced forced many famous...
The Custom Road Bike
When you first see a Richard Sachs bike you are drawn closer to it immediately. The perfect lugwork, the square shoulders of the fork crowns, the matter-of-fact simple lines and the thick paint all contribute to its simple beauty. I’ve drooled over many bikes, but...
fastidiousness
"needing some air, he went into the garden. "ah, look at the afternoon light," he said, for shadows were forming dark zones in the pasture recesses, as they do in his masterpiece, 'the mountain.' he went over to a small shed in the corner of the garden, the back wall...
the tao of atmo
money not only talks, it pedals pretty well too. while we're all watching professional cycle racing in all its various forms, there are excel spreadsheet guys who are watching mobile advertising hoardings, some smaller than others, depending on the size of the...
bicycles on the cover
mrs washingmachinepost is a childminder, and those in her care range from kids of around one and a half up to nine years old. a bit like trying to teach a similar range of ages how to ride a bicycle, it is often necessary to occupy one set of kids, while paying a bit...
Showcase!
NEW YORK; NY.- Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle, presented by the Museum of Arts and Design from May 11 through mid-August 2010, will display the designs of six internationally renowned bicycle builders whose work in metal, as well as graphics and artifacts, elucidate...
Custom Bicycles – a passionate pursuit
A self-confessed rebel, Richard Sachs describes his passion and addiction to bikes and racing as continually evolving and he believes he came to the bike building serendipitously. At the age of 16, he was smitten with his 10-speed bike and eventually started...
the little white bird
it's the little details that matter the most. because once all the big stuff has been appreciated, written about, photographed and tidied away, it's the little details that you either notice or miss. after the first of the alpine stages in the tour de france, we have...
Interview with Richard Sachs: :thewashingmachinepost
This is the full version of an interview which originally appeared in Spring 2009 on thewashingmachinepost.net . there are a considerable number of quality framebuilders in north america, many of them working with old fashioned steel tubes and lugs, but this arguably...
an intimate look into the life and mind of framebuilder
i can't weld, and i can't braze, and if i'm really honest, i'd be a bit nervous of having enormous gas canisters sitting in thewashingmachinepost bike shed. fortunately, i'm sure that health and safety wouldn't be too happy about a naked flame in a wooden shed either...
The Rapha Continental
Richard Sachs works and lives in a medium-sized yellow Colonial house on Main Street, at the far end of a quaint New England village. You can tell it’s his by the signature-red bike out front leaning, unlocked, against a white picket fence. And because above the front...
Review: Imperfection is Perfection
Richard Sachs has been racing bikes and building custom frames for over a quarter of a century. He's also no stranger to 'cross and, in addition to racing a full season each year, has provided generous sponsorship support for dozens of 'cross racers over the past...
Review: Imperfection is Perfection
The title of this video summarizes its content. For most of its 29 minutes, Richard Sachs examines the idea that perfection in a bicycle frame (or any other hand-built object) is an abstract concept. He holds this ideal in his head, but with experience, he has come to...
Imperfection is Perfection
For nine months in 2007, film maker Des Horsfield made a documentary about bicycle frame builder Richard Sachs. Horsfield's film takes an intimate look into the life and mind of the bicycle frame builder as Richard Sachs talks about why he does what he does, exactly...
Nagasawa’s Influence
Like Yoshiaki Nagasawa in Japan, Richard Sachs builds America's best frames one at a time in his small workshop in Connecticut. From start to finish, Sachs crafts each frame with the care that is rare in the bike industry. It's hard to even consider him as part of the...
Interview with Richard Sachs: :Belgian Knee Warmers
Richard Sachs’ name is synonymous with the handbuilt frame. It is unlikely that anyone else better represents the enigmatic image of the one-man frame shop whose body of work is more than just a bunch of beatiful bicycles, it stands for something. Recently BKW rang...
Richard Sachs’ Story
There's this guy I see racing around Chester always on a bicycle, often donning a funny red cap to keep his head warm in the colder months. He stops off at the post office and exchanges one armful of packages for another, gives his signature head nod greeting to those...
Mavericks of Steel
Far removed from the buzz of technology and well below the belly of today's much-hyped carbon fiber and titanium lies the soul of bicycle frames. Out of dusty shops filled with scraps of metal and well-used tools emerge some of the most beautiful, eclectic, yet...
Report on the Handmade Business
It makes you ponder predestination: A serendipitous series of naive but gutsy decisions set Richard Sachs, a beginning bike racer just out of high school,on the road to becoming one of America's pre-eminent custom bike builders. With time to fill before entering...
Master Builder Richard Sachs
Bike-Frame Builder: The Richard Sachs formula: steel, silver flux and a 6000 F flame—plus lots of hours set aside for riding. At a time when many high-end bicycles are made from materials worthy of a Pentagon wish list, Richard Sachs builds his frames the...
Sachs Appeal
Nestled in the small hamlet of Chester, Connecticut, among artists' studios, restaurants, and Colonial era homes, is a bicycle factory. This factory is operated by Richard Sachs, a craftsman bicycle frame builder. Sachs has been building bicycle frames since 1972 and...
Interview with Richard Sachs: :RaceListings.com
Legendary master frame builder Richard Sachs has put together one of the finest cyclocross specific teams in the country. RaceListings.com caught up with Richard for this exclusive interview. Tell us about your background in cycling. The full story is buried on...
Interview with Richard Sachs: :Large Fella on a Bike
Few names if any ring more crystal clear through the legions of frame builders than that of Richard Sachs. He has carved-literally-more personality, elegance and lustful desire into his frames than nearly anyone else. Like Stradivarius before him, Sachs crafts...
Brazed Alchemy
At the heart of a great wristwatch is a handcrafted mechanical caliber and at the heart of a great bicycle is a handmade frame. Richard Sachs is on the cognoscenti's short list as the best framebuilder in the history of the craft. No doubt about it, Lance Armstrong...