On Female Frame Builders…

[GOTHBROOKS]

my waterford schwinn was brazed by a woman.

[Doug Fattic]

When I started teaching frame building classes as a college course in 1976, about a third of my students were female. General ed requirements at that time included some kind of industrial arts course and making a custom frame/bicycle seemed more interesting to some than other required gen ed classes. In the last 15 years I suppose about 1 out of a dozen of my students were women. It is always dangerous to generalize on gender characteristics but all of them did very to extremely well. I can't remember any that struggled. The ones that had some kind of fine arts background did a super job carving lugs (if they wanted something different). That involved creating the design as well as cutting them out of blanks. That is a bit of a process. My application of my observations is that any resistance to learning how to make a frame is based on lack of interest and not abilities.

[Sketchy]

I have a beautiful Saila made by Lauren Trout. She was a welder and machinist at Seven then left to do her own thing.

[unterhausen]

I find it strange that all the female members of the paceline haven't weighed in on this subject.

[AJM100]

Sky Yaeger . . . not sure if she welds, but been designing for decades. Had a 631 Reynolds Steel Bianchi that was great and bore this decal . . .

[Bob Ross]

An old riding buddy of mine had a triathalon bike built by Bre Ruegamer, that thing was 100% badass.

Bre apparently got out of the framebuilding business a decade or more ago and is now the Service Manager for a bike shop in Portland OR.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I find it strange that all the female members of the paceline haven't weighed in on this subject.

Ah…

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Yes, it is easy to make excuses, as you've just demonstrated. Saying that the only reason some people aren't getting as far as others is simply because "they aren't trying hard enough" is usually just an easy excuse. Like, why there were fewer women doctors (or lawyers or CEOs) in 1950 is because fewer women "were willing work hard enough", is just an easy excuse, as if the society around them had nothing to do with it.

Deleted......life's too short to argue on a silly bike forum.

[buddybikes]

Kate Mills at Firefly:https://fireflybicycles.com/who-we-are/

New to the Firefly team as of 2020 Kate Mills has worked as a professional bicycle mechanic since 2007, but finds her degree in the studio arts and background in portrait painting and cartooning particularly applicable as she helps fulfill the vision and beauty of each custom frame. Before she was raising her young family Mills spent the off seasons bike touring, including self supported tours in 7 countries including coast to coast in the US. She maintains that west coast touring is the most beautiful in the world, but seeing as she’s from the East Bay of San Francisco some biases may be involved.

Mills not only loves getting greasy and making the best bikes possible, but also working to expand the bike industry to include more faces and communities. As part of her previous work Broadway Bikes, she developed intentional spaces to teach classes like the shop’s first *** (womxn, trans, femme) class in advanced bicycle repair and the first *** wheel building class, and brought Femmemachic’s monthly free and open shop time and instruction for *** folks to Broadway where she hosted the event for a few years. Mills has been a Bikes Not Bombs fundraiser, a supporter of the US National Federation of Cooperatives and a teacher of many topics in creating better worker equity and fairness such as consensus modeling, cooperative modeling, the importance of business transparency and why good policies, communications and expectations are essential to supporting a diverse workforce. Mills strongly believes in anti-racist movements and work when it comes to all our institutions including the bike industry and within herself.

She loves green tea ice cream and Arnold Palmers.

[Toeclips]

Terry bicycles comes to mind

[joevers]

The culture in the industry is a massive reason there's less representation. Even with the companies that are good, customers are terrible. I've worked with women in shops who when answering the phone are really often met with "can I talk to a mechanic". Men are just not talked to like that, and maybe just don't think about that.

My coworker was building a wheel today and I had a customer tell me how surprised he was to see a woman working here. "You shouldn't be" was all I could really think to say before he left. How many men have their work interrupted for a customer to say they're surprised a man works here? In the bike industry, zero.

If I'm going to spend several thousand dollars on a handmade frame, I'd rather it go to someone making the industry a better and more inclusive place. Whether that's making thoughtful geometry that doesn't specifically center men, employing more women, or sponsoring women to race or model bikes, it matters.

BTW, Jackie mentioned in the first post builds frames up the street from me. She's really talented and worth considering. I spent a while messaging Mercredi trying to get a frame. She makes absolutely lovely bikes and has a super interesting taste on fit and aesthetics.

There's plenty of people who aren't men who making really thoughtful contributions to framebuilding, and I'm really hoping this thread focuses more on that than just men saying that they think it's entirely women's fault that almost all framebuilders are White Men.

[HenryA]

Pretty rude.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Blue Jays

Gender of the builder has never been a consideration factor at all for me.

Me either, but my take from this thread is that it isn't because I'm gender-blind, it's because I've never had any exposure to a female builder outside of Georgina Terry. And she only built bikes for women, so not a choice.

[PurpleBikeChick]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I find it strange that all the female members of the paceline haven't weighed in on this subject.

In deciding to go custom, I intentionally searched for women since few/none were on lists I used. None of the small number of women frame builders I found had bikes that spoke to me, so I went with John Caletti.

I assumed that this gender disparity reflects, at least in part, the same reasons that I see so many fewer female serious/dedicated cyclists where I live. (As well as the very apt statement about “therein lies the rub”)

[jkbrwn]

Stef Adams welded my Seven and wooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Stacks. Of. Dimes.