From an Online Course to His Own Gravel Bike

Martin built his bicycle frame at home.

Cycling and bicycles have always been a big part of Martin’s life. At some point, he wanted to do more than ride and work on bikes. He wanted to learn something new: how to build his own bicycle frame.

When the Big Forest Frameworks online framebuilding course started, he decided to give it a try.

Martin is 36, lives in Potsdam, Germany, and studied naval architecture and ocean engineering. Hands-on projects were nothing new to him. He likes making things himself, has experience with CAD, and owns a 3D printer.

But he had never built a bicycle frame before.

And one thing in particular was completely new: brazing.

Can you really learn framebuilding online?

It’s an obvious question. Building a bicycle frame is about as hands-on as it gets, and not exactly what most people imagine when they think of an online course.

Martin was surprised himself:

“I’m honestly amazed that such a practical project can actually be done through an online course.”

He learned the individual steps through the course and our live online sessions. For brazing, Martin also took advantage of an optional hands-on day I offered for online students at my workshop in Potsdam.

His experience with CAD and his 3D printer also came in handy. He was able to design and make some of the small tools and fixtures he needed himself.

But that doesn’t mean the frame somehow built itself.

A gravel bike he knew he could build

Martin wanted a bike for roads, gravel and forest tracks. It needed to be comfortable, but still fast.

A gravel bike.

When it came to the design, he deliberately decided not to push every technical possibility. The most important thing was to design a frame he knew he could actually build himself.

So he kept the basic design fairly classic.

The small details still made it unmistakably his.

“The little details made it unique, and that makes me really proud.”

The doubts came during the build

Before the course started, Martin never really doubted that he could build a frame.

The uncertainty came later.

As the build progressed, a much more concrete question kept coming up:

Will what I’m building actually work? And will it hold up?

Brazing in particular was something Martin approached with a lot of respect. He says that respect hasn’t completely disappeared even now.

That’s part of framebuilding. You don’t just learn a series of steps. At some point, you have to trust the thing you’ve made with your own hands.

It takes longer than you think

One thing surprised Martin in particular: just how many individual steps go into building a bicycle frame.

He expected to finish much faster.

And there were days when enthusiasm was in fairly short supply.

“There were definitely moments when I had absolutely no desire to keep working on the frame. You need perseverance.”

I like that answer.

Building your own frame is a big project. Not every step is fun. Sometimes something doesn’t fit. Sometimes you have to go back and do something again.

But eventually, you get there.

Suddenly, it’s a frame

For Martin, one of those special moments came after he had cleaned all the flux from the finished frame.

For the first time, he could really see what he had made.

“Holding the frame in my hands after all the flux had been cleaned off was a great feeling. I was especially happy that the brazed joints looked pretty good.”

Steel tubes, drawings and countless individual steps had become a bicycle frame.

His bicycle frame.

So, how does it ride?

The bike is now fully built, and Martin has been riding it around Potsdam.

His verdict is wonderfully straightforward:

“It’s great. I get on the bike with a smile every time.”

The gravel bike already has its first shorter rides behind it. Next, Martin is planning to take it on a longer bike trip through Germany.

As he points out, a good bicycle is about more than just the frame. The components and setup matter too, and getting everything dialed in takes time.

But the most important part is done:

The bike he’s riding has a frame he built himself.

Will it be his last?

No.

Frame number two is already in the works.

What would Martin say to someone who is still wondering whether they should really try building their own frame?

His answer is pretty simple:

“If you’re wondering whether you should build a frame, just do it. What’s the worst that could happen?”