If riding a bicycle is your passion, the best thing you can do for yourself is attend a frame-building course and make one of your own. Manitoba’s Lyle Wiens did just that and has, after twenty-five very varied frames — ranging from roadies to backcountry tourers — found a very happy work and hobby balance.
Lyle grew up on a farm in southern Manitoba, Canada, where his closest neighbor lived one mile away, and his best friend four. After exploring the countryside on dirtbikes in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter, evenings were spent in workshops pulling things apart, either fixing them or just finding out how they worked.
Sometime in Lyle’s late twenties, around 2015, he attended Paul Brodie’s Framebuilding 101 class at the University of Fraser Valley. We’re big fans of Paul’s expertise here on The Spoken, and there are few better teachers of the craft than he. Now, Lyle is 6’8″, and was still finding a suitable ride, even after owning Barry Wicks’ 2013 Kona Major Jake.
A Lennard Zinn article in Bicycle Quarterly informed Lyle he should be riding 220mm cranks, a pair of which he took to the course and returned with a frame that fit and an unbridled zeal for the building. A steady stream of orders has flowed into Lyle’s workshop since completing the course, but it’s still for fun — at the moment.
He maintains his “day job is boring but pays the bills – my shop is therapy but doesn’t pay the bills. It’s a great balance”. This fillet-brazed roadie was built for Matt, who had a clear idea about what he wanted, right down to the clear coated frame. Steel, MKS Lambda pedals, PAUL components, and Campagnolo Record? We’re sold.
LT Wiens Fabrications Website
