United Bicycle Institute

Ashland, Oregon
Words by John Baxter

You love bikes. Perhaps you work tirelessly on your own rig, dreaming of a job where you could fix and build bikes every day. Desk jobs are for suckers, right? Whether it’s wrenching in a shop, traveling the world with a racing team, or designing and building your own frames, some people are meant to be around bikes all day long.

But how did these people learn to wrench on bikes, or to build custom frames? How do they get these cool jobs?

Many bike mechanics learned the old-fashioned way. They may have started by tinkering around in their garages, or hung around more experienced mechanics, learning by pestering and osmosis. Over time, their acquired knowledge was enough to land a job wrenching in a shop. If they stuck to the profession long enough, they might rise through the ranks to be a race team mechanic, or end up working for a major manufacturer.

People who want to learn frame building have had an even tougher road. While just about every town has at least one small bike shop where an aspiring mechanic can hang out, finding a custom frame builder—especially one with the time and willingness to teach someone else the craft—has never been easy. A notoriously independent breed, custom frame builders tend to work alone, and they have a reputation of not appreciating interruptions.

But now, more and more aspiring mechanics and frame builders are jump-starting the process by going to school. And the only place they can learn both mechanics and frame building is United Bicycle Institute (UBI).

Wayne Martin founded United Bicycle Institute, in Ashland, Oregon, in 1981. Martin had just started United Bicycle Tool (now United Bicycle Supply), a wholesale bicycle tool distributor. He quickly realized that a significant number of his potential customers didn’t really know how to use the tools he was selling. So he decided to start a school. But Martin soon tired of teaching, so he sold the school to a local shop owner named Merrill Hayes. After a couple more years, Hayes sold the school to one of his managers, Ron Sutphin, who, along with his wife Denise, still owns the school. And it’s finally settled in and found the right rhythm; since 1981, UBI has educated more than 12,000 students.

UBI’s philosophy is that learning about bicycles is fun. And students who attend are no doubt passionate about bikes. But beyond that, the school focuses on quality, customer service and attention to detail. “Let’s face it, the bike industry doesn’t have the best reputation for service,” Sutphin says. “We are doing what we can to change that.” The school teaches classes for beginning, intermediate and advanced mechanics, and the focus on doing things right from the start. Sutphin points out that, with the narrower and narrower torque values specified on today’s ultra-light carbon and titanium components, even home mechanics must possess a higher level of skill and attention to detail to make their work safe and reliable.

UBI has five full-time mechanics instructors on staff. But finding instructors isn’t easy. “You can find lots of talented mechanics in the industry; that’s not a problem,” says Sutphin. As the third owner, he knows the challenges. “You have to look a lot harder to find someone who is both a deeply knowledgeable bike mechanic and a good teacher. We always use the phrase ‘quiet confidence’ in describing our teachers. They really know their stuff, but they don’t have an attitude about it.”

UBI’s current roster includes former race team mechanics and service managers, an elite-level downhill racer, and others with experience at major manufacturers like Shimano, Giant, and Yeti.  “Every one of our teachers has at least a decade in the bike industry,” Sutphin points out. ”Several of our crew have been at it more than 20 years.”

A few years after UBI began its mechanics classes, Sutphin—who had been building custom bike frames—decided to expand the school’s curriculum to frame building. The first UBI frame-building instructor was the Bay Area legend Albert Eisentraut. Soon the school was offering titanium classes under another legend in frame building, Merlin co-founder Gary Helfrich.

“From the beginning my vision was a frame building school, just like we had a mechanics school,” Sutphin recalls. “In those days [the 1980s], if you could find someone willing to spare the time you could apprentice yourself to another builder, but there wasn’t any place you could find regularly scheduled classes in frame building.” Sutphin wanted to build a curriculum that focused on best practices, gathering ideas from many different frame builders to create a two-week program in which beginners could leave with a frame they’d designed and built entirely themselves.

Over the years, the program wove together Eisentraut and Helfrich’s approaches with Sutphin’s own philosophy, and added input from other frame builders who came through the school, including current instructors Mike DeSalvo and Jim Kish. And while many aspiring builders still follow the learn-it-yourself or apprenticeship paths, UBI’s school approach has certainly been an incubator for the resurgence in frame building in the U.S. At one time or another, builders like Jeff Jones (Jones Bikes), Rob Stowe, Margo Conover (Luna Cycles), Carl Strong (Strong Frames), Rich Gangl (Gangl Custom Cycles), Jeremy SyCip (SyCip Bikes), David Bohm (Bohemian Bicycles), Jordan Hufnagel (Hufnagel Cycles), Drew Guldelian (Engin Bikes), Kirk Pacenti (Pacenti Cycle Design), Darren Crisp (Crisp Titanium) and many others have attended UBI to learn the trade or pick up new skills.  “It’s always flattering to attend the North American Handmade Bike Show,” Sutphin says, ”because I can look around the room and see that about 10-20% of the builders are UBI graduates.”

UBI’s incubator effect works both ways. Recently the school invited 30-year veteran builder Paul Sadoff (Rock Lobster) to teach a steel TIG welding class, and Sadoff found himself learning new things, too. He wrote on his blog: “I have probably learned more in the last two weeks than in the last year about streamlining my building procedure.“ UBI says Sadoff will be back in 2009 to teach another class, joining a roster that includes Jim Kish, Mike DeSalvo, Fat City/Independent Fabrication veteran Gary Mathis, and Sutphin himself.

UBI’s mechanics and frame building classes have grown in popularity to the point that getting in requires a bit of advance planning. Classes often fill up about six to eight months in advance. Last year the demand got to the point that UBI realized it had to expand. “We were looking at erecting a second building on our property in Ashland so we could accommodate more students,” Sutphin says. “But there were a lot of factors big and small that made us question that approach.”

The school finally decided that adding a second location in Portland, Oregon was a wiser move. After a long process of selecting a building in the city, UBI officially announced in May that it would expand to Portland, saying, “the choice turned out to be a no-brainer. Portland is absolutely crazy for bicycles, and the cycling community there has embraced UBI more warmly than we could ever have imagined. Now we’re wondering why we didn’t do this sooner.” UBI’s new building in northeast Portland is undergoing renovation, and the building’s developer envisions creating an entire block of bike-related businesses anchored by UBI’s facility. The school expects to open its doors, pending all the usual permits and bureaucratic blessings, sometime in September 2009. UBI will initially offer mechanic’s classes in Portland, but plans to roll out frame building classes in 2010.

Now, if an aspiring mechanic or frame builder wants to get a jump on a career in the bike industry, they’ll have a choice of locations, and a much wider choice of class dates. Sutphin hopes this will be enough to serve the demand. “We’re tired of turning students away!”