I’m at the Bicycle Academy in Frome, Somerset, and someone is brazing a frame. This kind of thing happens all the time here – it’s what they teach. The room is full of Bridgeport mills, tubesets, dropouts and lathes.
There’s something special in the air though. There’s a rapt silence as everyone looks on at the framebuilder, unconventionally perched on a low stool, the nearly-finished frame slung over a shoulder in an equally unconventional fashion as he teases molten brass into a perfect fillet with a tiny oxyacetylene flame torch.