'It could die off': Frame-builder sets out to make the craft more accessible to Gen-Z via online learning

Artisan frame-building is a dying art that needs caring for and preserving – that is the view of one UK builder who has launched a project to help ensure its conservation.

Paul Gibson is a frame-builder at Yorkshire's Ellis Briggs, which was established in 1936. He has launched what he calls "a national mission to save a traditional craft".

Based on the Patreon platform, subscribers will be able to access frame-building tutorials and behind-the-scenes material, and Gibson says that funds raised will support efforts to document the craft, offer mentoring, and ensure that traditional techniques are passed on before they are lost.

And that loss Gibson says, remains a real danger.

"There will always be people who will find ways of building frames," he says, "but the more sort of artisanal, traditional frame-building – that could certainly die off."

Artisan frame-building was added to the Heritage Craft Association's endangered 'Red List' last year, where it sits alongside broom-making, cricket bat making and many others.

"I've always been interested in teaching and taking skills forward," he tells Cycling Weekly. "It's something I've already been doing for quite a few years."

It was his teaching, Gibson says, that indirectly inspired him to set up his frame-building Patreon. With his students getting older and older, he realised how inaccessible the skill can be for young people.

"Because of the prices of the courses and things, it's kind of out of reach of the younger generation," he says.

"I started racking my brain as to how we can do something that's more inclusive to younger people. Because I think younger people do want to do these things, it just doesn't seem accessible to them," he adds. "I'm working on some new courses which are going to be a two-day sort of introduction. And also I wanted to do something online that's more accessible to sort of Gen Z, really."

Gibson argues that there is still a healthy appetite for traditional steel frames, and says: "At the end of the day, a bike is, you know, a pair of wheels and a handlebar, and a steel lugged frame still covers that and still performs highly.

"People still like those. It's just that the price point is often a bit inaccessible for younger people. I think that is part of the problem that's the same across the whole cycling industry," he says.

At the moment, the only way into frame-building, Gibson explains, is asking around for ad hoc advice from other builders or saving up a considerable amount of money to go on a course.

"But you don't end up a frame-builder after a two-week course," he says. "There's a lot to it."

Gibson's Patreon project features three different tiers, costing between £3 ($3.80) and £8 ($10) per month. While the lowest tier is mostly about supporting Gibson's efforts to progress the craft and, he says, the craft more generally, the top tier is for those with a genuine interest in taking it up, with monthly live Q&As, tutorial videos and quite a bit more.

Gibson references Feather Cycles, whose founder and mainstay Ricky Feather announced last week that he would be building just 50 more frames before calling it a day.

"Everyone is just trying to survive at the moment," Gibson says. But he is on a mission to make sure that when economic times are easier, the skills will still be there to provide people with the bikes they enjoy – and he hopes that as many people as possible will join him.