Wade Beauchamp in his workshop | Photo © Lucas Freeman
Having spoken to a few custom handmade bicycle craftsmen attending this year’s Handmade Bicycle Show in Bend, I was left with the sense that where a framebuilder sets up shop is not dependent on a local market’s appetite for custom bikes. To get a framebuilder’s perspective, we visited Wade Beauchamp of Vulture Cycles in his workshop in Deschutes River Woods to follow up on the question of why more handmade bicycles aren’t built in Central Oregon.
Beauchamp covered a lot of ground with explanations as to why but much of it boiled down to a lament many in Central Oregon economic development circles have voiced: we lack manufacturing infrastructure. Beauchamp spoke of his new working relationship with Metrofiets as an example.
For this year’s Oregon Manifest, Vulture Cycles joined the Metrofiets Team in building a cargo bike to enter into the competition to see which framebuilder could build the next big innovation for utility bikes, those used for commuting and errands rather than recreation.
While working in Portland with the Metrofiets Team, Beauchamp marveled at how quickly he could get custom machined parts; that type of light industry exists in Portland. That’s a stark contrast to Bend where he often places an order and waits. Also lost are the synergies created from having a bicycle manufacturing cluster centered locally. For Beauchamp, that’s a large reason for the disconnect. He cites a few others though.
Why Not in Central Oregon?
When you couple a lack of manufacturing support with the fact that rents for workspace are higher in Bend than Portland, it makes it very tough to setup shop here. When you pile-on a lack of a qualified talent pool, which you could tie back to a lack of light manufacturing in the region, life as a Central Oregonian framebuilder gets lonely.
Beauchamp has had apprentices before, but largely they didn’t pan out because the individual didn’t want to do the hard, non-glamorous, grunt work of building bikes while learning the craft. They also expected full salary which Beauchamp said he couldn’t afford given how much time he was spending training rather than building. Is that lack of a willingness to invest time in the short-term for the long-term benefit of a tradeskill specific to Central Oregon? Probably not, but Beauchamp isn’t the first business owner to bemoan Central Oregon’s labor force.
The Vulture Cycles Lifestyle
Similar to many entrepreneurs, he’s caught in a cycle of wanting to spend all his time on the craft he loves while needing to spend time on his business. Ideally, Beauchamp is looking for help in a number of facets of his business: from business development to someone who can execute mundane machining tasks after he’s done the complicated setup work.
While he waits for that perfect candidate to come knocking at his door, he marvels at how the local bicycle buying market has changed. Not to many years ago, it was rare for bike shops to sell a $5,000 bike. Beauchamp cites the stock Trek Madrone road bike which does not uncommonly sell for up to $10,000 as evidence of a shift in the marketplace. His bikes could be that expensive, but they largely fall into the range of $2,000 to $3,000, and are completely custom fitted and built to order.
In the coming months, Beauchamp’s partnership with Metrofiets will bring an order for more than a dozen cargo bikes. He’s invited Bike Around Bend back to see his workshop during a production run. We look forward to it.
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