Hasta La Ideas

Photos courtesy of Ezra Caldwell

We’ve devoted a fair number of pages and pixels to that singular design object known as the bicycle, and whether you’re a leisure rider or all-weather commuter, weekend warrior or retrogrouch, there’s no denying the functional elegance of the human-powered conveyance. Thus, when Harry Schwartzman reached out to us about lending our support to the inaugural Bike Cult Show, a celebration of the beautiful machine and a local-ish community of individuals dedicated to building them, we were happy to support the cause.

“I think the bike is inherently the most perfect thing that people have ever designed.”

So says Ezra Caldwell, who isn’t exactly known to exaggerate, a framebuilder who holds a unique place among their ranks, not least for his unusual background. At least a couple of clichés—Jack-of-All-Trades and Renaissance Man—come to mind, yet his story is anything but: the son of a woodworker, he enrolled at the University of Arts as an industrial design major, only to discover that he disliked the curriculum and “ended up in the dance department somehow and got stuck dancing for 15 years.” Despite the fact that Caldwell was talented enough to land a cushy part-time teaching gig after a decade in the dance world, he eventually found himself back in the shop; by 2007, he decided he liked bicycles (and had grown disenchanted with the performing arts) enough to dedicate his life to building custom bicycle frames.

Fast Boy Cycles was barely a year old when Caldwell received a devastating diagnosis of colorectal cancer; up until that point, about five years ago, he “really did get everywhere on a bike.” I first learned Caldwell’s story via this beautifully executed short film in the documentary series “Made by Hand”:

If the short doc successfully transcends the tragic trope of a gifted artist stricken with a terminal illness—a trait that threatens to consume the victim’s identity even as he accepts his fate—it’s a bit surreal to see him in the flesh, and in high spirits no less, when I visit him in his basement workshop in an unassuming brownstone in Harlem. “It may not seem possible to believe, but I am so happy right now,” he declares. “There are parts of it that really bum me out, but on balance, I would say I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

(more…)