I wear a lot of clothes. I destroy them all pretty quickly. I get a lot of free t-shirts and hoodies but hey, it’s the pants. We could talk about how I distribute my possessions or whatever but it’s simply the metal shavings. I collect sharp or often burning objects in my pockets.

I wear Carharts but they have really cut back on the weight of the fabric (warning, sell shares) and the pockets may get overlooked when the typical buyer comes along. I found one maker of custom jeans. I called on a Saturday and with a Mexican accent she explained she could make anything I want if she could get the material. I though that was weird until I found we are running out of metal.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I was teaching a welding class in New Paltz NY at Vicious cycles. Accomplished frame builders attended this class with the intention of making frames. These people, engineers, fabricators, frame builders all showed up and we had a blast but we had to talk about getting metal.

While aluminum may not be your ideal frame building material consider what contributions it has made. OK, ya, NEXT bikes exist, it can’t be denied but so do water-pipe Schwinns. If you want to win races and need a custom fit, aluminum is natural choice. So???

What about my pants?

Custom bikes are available, what about custom pants? The textile industry is perhaps worse than the bicycle industry. Exploitation creates a wasteland of unused resources and outdated machinery. Is there an under-used factory taking small orders?

It would be cool to support a quality industrial wear company. Keep me posted. Wade is trying to make tubes at Acel but that is a story for another day.