“Crafts people, they're chasing something… they're developing something...I feel like – thank you to my customers, because you're helping me develop into a better person through my practice. This craft, I'm just going to keep chipping away at it forever, trying to get a little better, and that’s good for me to do.”
John Caletti
The following blog post is based on an interview I did with John Caletti, the founder, frame builder, and artist behind Santa Cruz-based Caletti bicycles.
We live in this world of mass production, and we're so far removed from the things that we consume – why is it important, that still, things are made by hand? I ask John, as we sit in the lobby of his inviting shop in Santa Cruz.
Yeah, that's a great question, and I'm not sure I could totally articulate it. It is very multi-layered – and it’s much more like there's a relationship that's going on here. John says.
You know who the person who made your bike is, and you know they are really into riding, and they took a lot of time with it. It's far more fascinating, when you have a different relationship, a different story with it. And when it's made really, really well. He continues.
Tell me more about the relationship with time, the patience required that goes into building a frame. Some of these bikes, unlike other possessions, can truly last a lifetime. I ask eyeing the frames like art sculptures adorned on the walls of the shop.
I’ll make maybe 50 frames a year on a good year, and things have slowed down since my accident – but yeah it takes time, and I have fun doing it. He describes. And yes, it’s different – it’s not like a factory in China that’s producing so many frames per minute, my frames can last for life –
How about the character of different metals? What is it like building with steel vs titanium?
I started with steel. John says, but in a lot of ways titanium is a better teacher. It really requires more from the builder…
Welding is very challenging, but I think at this point, I've done it long enough where I know that I can sit down with the frame and weld it out and it's gonna come out great.
Hood down, the colors are different, it's just, super concentrated, these little movements, both hands and my foot at the same. It's a nice, flow state type of thing. He adds with a smile.
This state of consciousness, the flow state – that you’re describing, I feel like when I’m on the bike sometimes too. I say. Or when I’m doing things that require all my attention, and feel this expanded sense of time. I enter this other space in myself and there’s a kind of zen-like quality, this flow zone where I don’t feel the hours pass –
I just like dipping into that zone, yeah, I love that. He says. Sometimes I come in on Sundays and say, I don't answer the door. I don't have anybody come by, no computer, just fabrication. So just get back there, get on some music and get concentrated focus time. It’s really nice.
I like the notion of that, there's this kind of overlap with an expansive mindset, a different mindset – cycling can do that, and there’s this organic nature to that mindset, and so it makes me think of nature and the mystery of nature, and so much of that is what’s so great about cycling, and particularly in our area, is how we get to go out and have those experiences, plugging ourselves into nature. Caletti continues.
I find it's hard for me to cycle now while listening to music, and harder still to cycle while I'm thinking about something else. It becomes this meditative state that is very, very present. You know, I feel very in the moment. I reply.
Who is your ideal customer when making this bike? Or was it for yourself? Was it more like an artistic expression?
The adventure road style of bike - that’s the style I like – it's very much a bike I'm gonna ride. I think it's killer. It's a style I've developed over a long period of time. So I guess I feel, I ride that bike the most personally, so I feel more of an affinity to it.
Where do you let beauty take the lead, and where do you let function take the lead? How do you solve for what the customer wants, in a way that's aesthetic, but also very practical. How do you want your customers to feel when riding?
I think of that more as a question of where they're gonna ride, and how they like to ride – and it's different for each of us. I hope they ride and feel like: “Oh, my God, this is so fun. Like, yeah, kind of childlike, like, kind of giggling because it's so fun. Or, yeah, I rode my road bike through the dirt, like, that was crazy…”
Or, some little weird path, it just invites more exploration, more adventure, being less serious, having a good time, that what would be the ultimate – just people out there, smiling, giggling, doing something new.
I love that - and love the idea of having a bike that explores that type of exploration and risk taking. I respond. What do you think makes a Caletti bike, a Caletti bike like, what are those different defining elements that you think about when you start a build? Do you focus more on function in the frame, and aesthetic more in the finish? I ask.
I suppose that the biggest thing is just that I'm so involved that it has so much to do with me and how I work. So that might start with, really trying to listen well so that I can understand them and what they want and what's important. And then be responsive to what their wants are, and help.
I think for some people, the aesthetic is what stands out to them. My particular style and the way that I do things resonates with people. Also they really like the process.
I feel like my customers have a lot of trust in me, and they come to me for my expertise, and I can share that with them in a way that is really meeting them where they're at based on what they want. So it's a nice back and forth, and it feels fun and comfortable. Caletti continues.
It's not a top down pressure kind of a thing. It's pretty nice, people have a good time with that and feel very comfortable, and they're getting their bike that they want, and that works well for them. And I make that easy, and then I take that into the bike. They don't exactly know everything that goes on behind the scenes, but, I'm really putting a lot of effort into doing a great job with every step along the way to make sure that it comes out as best as I can do it right now.
Are there other artists or craftsmen that inspire you? Architects, musicians, artists?
Just love these guys: Khuarangbin. Vibe wise, they have a bit of a minimalism to the whole deal, particularly the drummer, it's like, part of the magic that makes it work is, like, this really nice mix of where there's complexity and where there's simplicity.
I like this a lot. What you're suggesting, this interplay between simplicity and complexity. I think that’s awesome — there's elements of that in design and in riding, like there are certain routes when riding that can offer the same thing, that can be very pure, low traffic…and offer a mix of more technical riding but more simplicity at the same time too –
If each bike is a poem, what would you want it to express? I ask John as we wrap up.
Wow, I'm not a writer – I don't know how it would be the best way to articulate it, but some things that are kind of coming to mind might be something really to do with really absorbing the experience.
These themes of absorption, of the flow state – there's a bit of that kind of mindfulness or moment of, when you're out there really, taking this in. I mean, sometimes we're really in that flow state. Just like wow. What a great thing to be out here doing this, riding, and then in here in the shop too, it's that - appreciating this, the work that I get to do, and the mind state and the physicality of it.
“That's life…We can play like children play…We can say like children say…Have we got the time?”
- Khuarangbin