This article is part of a series I’ve been writing about my experience taking a two week bicycle frame building class from master framebuilder, Doug Fattic.

Image Courtesy of Robert Golding

Taking a two week intensive frame building class was just that, intense. Spending 8-12 hours a day working on one project in isolation allowed for quick learning, but also the days ran together in a blur. 

Now that I’m back in Austin with my normal routine, Doug’s workshop in Niles, Michigan seems like a distant memory. However, I’ve received a certain confidence in my ability to not only build a frame but do handy work in general that I didn’t have just two week ago. Overall, it was a good experience and a well done class. I’m glad I went.

What I liked about the class

Probably the best thing about the way Doug has set up this class is the class size. Normally, it is limited to three students (occasionally four) which turns out to be just about the right size for optimal learning. By having other students learning at the same time, you watch the mistakes others make and learn faster. Also, inevitably students will be at different levels and encounter different problems yielding solutions you may not need for your current project but will need in the future. Since Doug also brings in his assistant, Herbie, for some of the afternoon brazing sessions, the student/teacher ratio is great allowing multiple students to work at the same time under supervision.

Brazing my fork crown to the steerer. Image Courtesy of Robert George.

Doug organizes the day into morning lectures and demonstrations, afternoon student practice and work, and evenings for catch up, additional work, or a break depending on the status of your learning and frame. This allowed a nice pace with plenty of time built in to catch up if something goes wrong (like brazing the seat tube to the wrong bottom bracket hole) or take breaks if you are feeling overwhelmed. These intense, long days also provided an esprit d’corps in the class by the second week as we got to know each other.

Doug’s teaching style is even and positive in general looking for understanding from students and aware when things need to be explained in a different way. In the end, you have to learn frame building by doing, and he did a good job of showing technique by example then allowing students to try on their own, intervening when we got in trouble.

Doug’s workshop was quite complete with all kinds of tools and machinery. This was nice as it allowed use to try doing things with different tools to see what we really need for our workshop and what can wait as a later add on. We also built the frames using a variety of frame building fixtures as well as techniques that do not require fixtures so we could see how useful each one was before slapping down the sometimes thousands of dollars they cost. 

Finally, since I’m interested in building transportation/utility bike frames and in fact chose to build a Dutch style bike, it was nice that Doug specialized in building these bikes. Not only had he study other such bikes and thought a lot about what geometry and specing worked best, he also had frame parts like rear drop outs that are unavailable elsewhere fabricated to work with the purpose of the bike. This was quiet the stroke of luck for me.

What I did not like about the class

Robert being fitted on the fitting bike.

The first day or so was spent discussing frame geometry and proper fitting of riders to the bike being made. I had a hard time understanding how the measurement transfered to the bike’s geometry and tube sizing at first. My classmates Robert and Andrew were actually fitted on the the fitting bike Doug had before beginning, but because exact fit is less of an issue with transportation bikes and Doug has built so many of them, we skipped the fitting bike and proceeded with a few measurements. By the end of the class, I had a reasonable understanding of the basics based on traditions of previous frame builders, but I never felt I had a real grasp of why bikes are built a certain way and what are the effects of moving on direction or another off the norm. Now, I realize a more detailed discussion of bike fit could be another multi-day class, but there is a higher standard for specific comfort and handling from a custom built bike versus a stock bike. It would be good to have a better grasp on this before proceeding. (I’m actually doing my own reading on the subject.)

Not an issue most of the year, the cold weather topped this Texas boy's list of dislikes.

As I mentioned above, Doug’s shop was very well stocked with equipment, which was a real plus. However, as someone who had little shop experience, I had to stop Doug quite a bit to ask him how to use the different machinery. I recommended to Doug that he do a brief tutorial on each piece of equipment in the shop at the beginning of the class. Not everyone is humble enough to stop and ask for help if they don’t know what they are doing or they may have learned wrong, and this would avoid some potentially expensive mistakes.

My lack of shop experience did color the teaching as well, in some good and some not so good ways. I did seem to get a lot of supervision before being allowed to do certain things on my own. This was fine, in fact preferable to me, but I did feel a little pigeon holed at times as the least capable student in my interactions with Doug. This may have been the case at the beginning of the class, but I felt we all had reached a fair amount of parity in skill by the end. (This is my own perception which may not be the case.) I think this sort of bias can have a negative effect on the confidence of students. It was by no means overwhelming, but it did occur.

Finally, the part I probably disliked most was having to leave my life for two weeks. This had some up side in the learning curve as I mentioned above, but this makes it very difficult for those who are not self employed like myself or retired to take the class. I realize this part is somewhat unavoidable as few community colleges or trade schools offer semester long classes in frame building.

Comparison to UBI’s frame building class

The other well known place to go to learn bicycle frame building is the United Bicycle Institute in Ashland, OR. I had looked at their two week program which has produced many good frame builders, but their schedule of available classes did not match my availability. In conversations with Doug (who took their titanium class after 20 years of steel building) and with Andrew who has a friend that went to UBI, I took away the following thoughts.

I think Doug’s classes are better in a few ways. Price and accessibility is a definite plus. Although you pay for materials separately with Doug and they are all included with UBI, my total class costs were around $1800 as opposed to UBI’s current $2350 for a similar class. Also Niles, Michigan, while not a major metropolis is an hour and a half train ride from Chicago, a city most people can fly directly to. Ashland, Oregon would require multiple flights and some additional ground transportation to get to for most. The student-teacher ratio is certainly better with Doug (3-1), helped more when his apprentice shows up, while UBI’s is still a reasonable 4-1. Doug does allow and encourage additional evening work. On the other hand, the UBI workshop closes at 5 p.m. each day. I also understand that UBI has a pretty standard way of teaching students each step of the frame building process. I feel like Doug exposed us to many different viable ways of doing things and is sensitive to what works best for each student.

UBI is a quality, highly recommended school and does have some advantages as well. First, because they hold more classes than Doug and have a class size of 8 instead of 3, you are more likely to be able to attend an UBI class. (As an aside, I did get put on a waiting list for a class while I was waiting to finalize my enrollment with Doug. I got a call about three weeks later that a spot had opened up, but I was set with Doug by then.) They also offer more building options with classes in TIG welding and titanium building (we only learned brazing in Doug’s class.) UBI is certainly easier to find online (Doug has yet to get a web site) and offers frame building supplies for sale.

Image Courtesy of Robert George

Final Thoughts

If I had the chance to take this class again, I’d do it in a heart beat. I learned a tremendous amount and feel ready to build frames on my own once my workshop is set up. Doug has a good teaching demeanor, is very knowledgeable, and has planned out his class well. Though I had a few critiques, I found the entire experience to be excellent and a completely viable option to UBI or any other quality frame building school.

Read the previous post in the series, Day 8-10, Austin, we have a bicycle frame.

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