Hasta La Ideas

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.

Bike Cult Show: Save the Date · Ezra Caldwell · Johnny Coast

Johnny Coast has been handcrafting custom bicycle frames in his Brooklyn shop for the better part of a decade now, but he first got his hands on a torch before he learned how to drive. Of course, seeing as his father owned and operated an auto body shop that specialized in custom work for hot rods, Coast was certainly comfortable behind the wheel by then. (As the story goes, his grandfather was also a machinist, and Coast inherited machine tools that have been going strong for three generations now.) “I basically grew up in [my dad’s] shop,” he says, reminiscing. “As far back as I can remember, he was teaching me how to work with metal, I was welding by the time I was 12 years old.” Beyond the work itself, Coast’s father taught him “how to work and think about metal, how to safely run a shop… Basically he planted the ‘maker bug’ in me.”

Image courtesy of Johnny Coast

Coast eventually parlayed his longtime predilection into a vocation at the United Bicycle Institute, with further tutelage from legendary framebuilder Koichi Yamaguchi. We recently had the chance to check out his Bushwick shop and hear him elaborate on these experiences and more:

Core77: How you ended up building bikes for a living?

I studied framebuilding at the United Bicycle Institute, a trade school for framebuilders and bicycle mechanics. I also learned fillet brazing and stem building from Koichi Yamaguchi, master framebuilder of the famed 3rensho bicycle company. Both [of my educational experiences] were great and almost polar opposites from each other. UBI has an almost lab like setting, with lecture in the morning and lab hours in the afternoon, very structured, as it is a state-recognized trade school.

The Yamaguchi classes, on the other hand, were one-on-one with the teacher. All of the hours spent at the work bench going back and fourth with the task at hand, I would work for some time then Koichi would take the file from me and show me how to file the coping. It was very intense, always with Koichi over your shoulder either accepting your actions, or rejecting them, and instructing you in his way. He was sort of mind blowing for me because we needed a part for the stem I was working on and not having one in stock, he shrugged and said, “we’ll just make one.” I kind of realized the brilliance of just fabricating anything you need…

After school, I set up shop and started making as many bikes as possible, putting this knowledge to use. My father used to say that [when kids graduate from] trade schools, they think they know everything but have no experience. It was true: UBI handed me all of these answers, but I had no experience, so I set out to learn some things by doing them.

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