The New Yorker article on Grant Petersen and Rivendell

[redir]

A lot of comments that, I like competitive riding and at the same time appreciate Grant for what he does. The thing is he doesn't appreciate you for what you do. In fact he thinks you are a clown. That's how toxic personalities work. And I get it. Frank Zappa was a real narcissistic arse but I still love him too.

This sums it up for me:

Richard Sachs, a master frame builder, told me. “You’re buying Grant. You’re buying Grant’s intellectual property, and his forty or fifty years of staying true to his belief system.”

That's it in a nutshell and if that's what you want that is what you get. And I totally get it. As a craft person, guitar maker, myself I have my certain way of doing things. Any of the hand full of highly successful guitar makers in this country do and that is what you are buying. You are buying their design philosophy and experience and a bit of their, in many cases like Grant, opinionated personalities. You just happen to get a bike or a guitar with it.