CARBONDALE - When learning a trade or subject, if you want to know how to do it the correct way, it's a good idea to acquire the knowledge of an expert.

This past week, a group of students at Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale saw the value in having a knowledgeable teacher. They spent the interim week before spring break building their own bicycle frames. The instructor, none other than Koichi Yamaguchi.

"I was really excited when I heard about Koichi teaching the class," said CRMS junior Molly Surls, as she prepared to braze a portion of her bike frame. Brazing, like welding, is a technique used to fuse two metal parts together. Brazing is done at a lower temperature than welding, using a bronze alloy. High heat would damage the structural integrity of the metal.

"I just can't wait to see it painted and take it for a ride," she added.

Color of choice? Purple for Molly.

Yamaguchi is a world-renowned bicycle-frame builder who has built frames for the U.S., Japan and USSR's national teams in the past. He learned the craft of frame building during the late 1970s and the early '80s working for 3 RENSHO bikes in Japan, where he constructed around 4,000 frames for several Japanese professionals. For more than 10 years, he built frames for the U.S. National Team. Nine of those years he lived in Colorado Springs near the United States Olympic Training Center. He's even built frames for Lance Armstrong and Glenwood Springs High School graduate Bobby Julich.

But for Yamaguchi, these kids wanting to learn the craft is just as special as the work he's done.

"Especially, bike building by hand, that is a dying craft," Yamaguchi said. "To have young people interested in this is really exciting to me."

Most frames today are built using machines and are manufactured using mass production techniques, Yamaguchi said. Even most custom bike frames today are built using machines. But Yamaguchi's bikes are all built by hand, using hand tools, no machines. And that's the way he taught the kids to build them.

"It's really an art," Yamaguchi said. "You go back and smooth out some of the work, just like a painting. It may never be done."

Some of the students built traditional mountain bike frames. Others built style-specific frames designed for events such as mountain-cross, where the bike is used more for riding on a flat dirt road or trails.

"Each of the students had an Idea of the type of bike that they wanted to build," Yamaguchi said. "I just help them with the geometry, the measurements and the dimensions, and they build the bike themselves."

CRMS sophomore Amon Barker, who is on the school's mountain bike team and is also sponsored by KONA bikes, has been riding for as long as he can remember. He was excited to learn how to build a frame from Yamaguchi.

"I really like racing," he said. "It's a pretty good opportunity, so I signed up."

All the students received a package with nine lightweight steel tubes. They had to cut each tube to length, and make the "saddle" cuts on the ends of the tubes where they would connect to other tubes. They have to supply the other parts of the bike, such as tires and rims, handlebars and brakes.

In seven days, they will have a complete bike frame built by their own hands. Yamaguchi is capable of building a frame in about six hours. But, since it's their first time, he took it easy on them.

"These kids already have the experience and the knowledge how to build a frame," Yamaguchi said. "I really like teaching them."

And even though it is only their first time building a frame, they aren't too worried about whether their frames will hold up under the pressure of the first ride.

"I'm not nervous, I trust him," Surls said. "We do 90 percent of the work, but he's still here to help if we need it."

Yamaguchi's got enough work of his own, creating future frame builders.



Contact John Gardner: 945-8515, ext. 16604

jgardner@postindependent.com



Post Independent, Glenwood Springs, Colorado CO