[music]
-When I was in Colombia earlier this year,
I was lucky enough to be able to meet a legend of frame building,
Agustin Hincapié.
He is based just outside of Medellin, and one Sunday morning a rode out
to meet him and his family at his workshop,
hoping to learn a little more
about this free-thinking master craftsman.
Just found out that the reason Agustin started building frames
is basically to find a way of supporting his new family.
He said his wife was pregnant, and he learned how to build frames
basically, which is an amazing but a powerful way of starting really
because I guess back home now if you're to launch
into custom building, you'd do it almost as an alternative career path
as opposed to actually a way of making a living.
Incredible, really.
That there is one of the first ones.
-When I started building bicycles, I didn't know how to make them,
so a friend lent me some books in English.
I didn't know English,
so I had to translate them
with a dictionary in hand, word by word.
-In the beginning you use lugs?
-Yes. Lugs and steel, the traditional frame.
By that time, I didn't have any idea of bike geometry,
so when a beautiful bike arrived in my country,
I measured it.
-56.
My size.
-It's your size.
I was a cyclist like you,
and when I decided to start building bikes,
the first one I made, I built for me.
When I went out to ride with my friends,
and they told me it was beautiful.
They started asking me to make one for them.
They knew me, and they knew that I was a cyclist,
so it was for my friends that I started building bike frames.
-Where did you get the steel from and the lugs?
Where did you buy them?
-Here in the city.
There was one person that had contacts in Italy.
He brought me the materials, and he helped me get them
either from Italy or Panama.
I got them from a friend.
I am Masters for a business from Reynolds 753.
-Reynolds. -Reynolds 753 [chuckles].
-You build from Reynolds and Columbus?
-Reynolds, Columbus, Ishiwata, [?], all.
-When did you go from lugs to fillet brazing.
-I prefer lugs for engineering reasons.
Since the arrival of different measurements, sizes, widths, et cetera,
all of the world's frame constructors had to migrate to fillet.
It is not that fillet is better, I think lugs are better, much better.
-Well, Augustin's favorite method of building frames is still
with steel tubes and lugs, he will happily turn his hand
to just about anything, fillet brazing,
TIG welding, and not just in steel
but also aluminum and titanium as well.
He just draws the line at carbon.
TIG weldings with Argon gas?
-Do you want to see?
-Yes. It's down there? -Si.
-Okay.
[music]
-This is my TIG welder.
This is a new welder with many functions.
-The argon gas fill the titanium?
-Argon, si.
-Did you teach yourself titanium TIG welding?
-Si, señor.
-Over the years, Agustin has built thousands of frame sets.
Always working closely with his customers
to create their dream bikes.
Perhaps the best showcases of his craftsmanship
and the level of customization he's capable of though
are the bikes he's built for his grandson.
I don't know quite why, I have all the amazing bikes here,
but this has really hit the spot.
It's just how much thought has gone into making this bike
for his grandson.
These custom made handlebar and stem, I think we can see
the tiny diameter here.
Obviously, kids, they've got little hands,
so a normal size handlebar, it just doesn't work.
Here, you've got this diameter, what's that like?
1 centimeter?
12 millimeters?
-12 millimeters or 0.5 inches.
-It's just beautiful.
-This is the new bike.
-Look.
-Look at that. -No, look at this.
The crank arms are custom made.
-How did you do that? -135 millimeters crank arms.
-The dropouts, do you make those, or do you buy them?
-No, I hand--
-This is amazing.
Beautiful.
-This doesn't look easy.
-[foreign language] -Look at that,
it's a customer dropout, it's a standard one,
and then you weld the hood around the edge.
Build the wheels too? -Si, I build the wheels.
-I guess you make everything.
-I paint here too.
-You paint? -Si.
Because you were coming, I put everything away.
-All of this amazing equipment is things that you've accumulated
over the years.
Amongst here, there's old equipment as well as new?
-Over the years, I've collected history here.
I've been saving almost everything from year to year,
and sometimes I recycle it.
There is stuff that is really, really old.
This
and this.
Do you know what is this? -Yes, I remember from Moods
for bending their concert thing.
-[foreign language]
-My arms are not strong enough.
I'm truly honored that Agustin has watched one of the videos
I made when I went to Moods.
We were just talking about the fact that I wasn't able to set a tube,
a titanium tube, and he's got exactly the same bit of equipment.
Forks.
Nobody makes forks.
It's like you buy it as custom steel frame,
and then you put a carbon fork in the front of it.
All the builders do that.
-I do the forks as well.
If you want carbon, that comes made, but this one, I make.
When the geometry is different, I prefer to do the fork
because forks are really important for bike handling.
-You can change the geometry with that, so the trail and--
-The tire
and the rake and the trail and the angle.
It's very important for the handling of the bike.
I speak English. [laughs]
-What's your choice of rake and head angle and trail?
What would your perfect be?
73.
-It depends what you are going to do.
If they are going to be very long travels
carrying heavy luggage,
it's preferable to have this long and this short.
I have a world record in the track on the 1 kilometer with the rider,
Efrain Dominguez.
He was the world record holder with a bicycle design
and built by me.
-That's cool. World record, Efrain Dominguez,
who's a very famous Colombian track sprinter,
he set a killer world record.
At what year? -1983.
-Agustin is a free thinker and incredibly creative.
As well as building frames, he's also made the tools
that he needs to do so, like this movable arm
that allows him to work on the frame with far greater ease.
His whole workshop, in fact, feels like an Aladdin's cave.
-How you say? Brainchild?
-Yes, he's brilliant.
-All bicycles are the same symmetrically,
right or left.
This is flat, not leveled, flat.
The point is to put this in the middle of the frame.
You go to the road and see two bicycles tracks,
then it's crooked.
There has to be only one track.
[chuckles]
-In keeping with his freethinking spirit,
Agustin uses AutoCAD software, not a specific bike card
because he feels he's able to be more creative with it.
-Here I have the frame, height, length, everything.
This line,
this line,
and then I take that reference, that reference, that reference,
and I put it here.
1,
2,
3,
4.
This is mine;
there is nothing like it in the world.
This is mine.
-I was thinking that I've never seen people build frames
in that was before.
You worked that out yourself, is that right?
-Yes, it's mine. I developed this myself.
Everybody works with Anvil that was developed in the US.
In the UK, there are some that develop their system
but only in the UK.
-How many bikes do you make each year?
-This is relative,
but all the bicycles I have done in these 40 years are around 3,000.
-Only you still in the workshop.
-This workshop is one person. Yes, me; only me.
[chuckles]
-I was going to say, is that George Hincapie?
That's weird, George Hincapie has just turned up.
Well, coming to the end of our day, bizarrely, ex-pro,
George Hincapie stopped by to borrow a track pump.
Now despite the last name, he's no relation to Agustin.
Although I learned that his parents are from Medellin,
and he was actually just down here a few days of riding
with another familiar face, Bobby Julich.
It was a small world, though at least it was.
Well, thank you so much.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
-Glad to meet you. -To you too.
I've got to say this has been such an honor to meet Agustin
and see a true craftsman, not just the frames
that he's built but all the equipment that he's made for himself
as well to refine the process of frame building,
absolutely fantastic.
I got to say, there is definitely space in my quiver
of bikes for Hincapié.