BOOKShelf: As the calendar turns toward another year, few rituals in the cycling world carry the anticipation—and scarcity—of Richard Sachs opening his order book. On December 15, the revered American framebuilder will release just forty build slots for 2026, a tightly controlled queue he has limited to twelve months since 2018. Yet Sachs’ influence stretches far beyond the torch and the file. For decades he has chronicled his inner and outer craft in sharp, meditative prose, and now those reflections have taken on a life of their own in his “Arrange Disorder” book series. Part memoir, part workshop philosophy, and part lyrical stream-of-consciousness, these small, elegant volumes offer a rare window into the mind of a maker who has spent more than fifty years searching for order in the beautiful chaos of shaping steel.
One of the deans of American framebuilding, Mr. Sachs has more than one string to his bow. On his Facebook page he expresses himself in interesting and carefully-constructed snippets. Now his creative writing appears in more substantial format as his “Arrange Disorder” books capture thoughts from years of journal keeping and online writing.
Volumes 1 and 2 of “Arrange Disorder” came out out this year, with Volume 3 in production at the time of writing. They are small (70 pages or so) beautifully-presented books of short pieces alternating with atmospheric images. The text dips into the thoughts of someone who has stood at his workbench for over 50 years crafting steel bicycle frames. They are thoughts about working metal, about tools, about clients, about learning as well as about teaching.
Richard Sachs came to framebuilding in a roundabout manner. A bike racing enthusiast from an early age, he also learned that he had a talent for writing. Wishing to enroll in a college course for creative writing, he was accepted but then learned that the course was filled and it would be some months before he could take it up. Seeing an ad in “The Village Voice” for a bike mechanic, he jumped on a bus and showed up at the shop unannounced. He declared himself ready to start to work only to learn that the position was filled. He also realized he probably was not really qualified for it anyway. So to address his shortcomings on his return home he wrote to thirty English framebuilders offering to become an unpaid apprentice and learn the trade. One of them took him up and so it all began.
The creative writing urge did not fade. Mr. Sachs heeded the advice of one of his teachers to keep a journal. As he works with his files seeking that stroke that is not too little or a step too far, his prose is transparent and carefully weighted. Here is where the books’ title comes from: “I like order I crave order I live a life of disorder…..There’s the vision I have. And then there’s real. The closer I get, the further it moves from me. The order, that is. That’s why I arrange disorder. I try. When I can, that is. Because in this life full of distraction and lack of focus and overcommitment and attention span lapse and tumult and everything else that vies for a moment of my time, the closest I get to order is to line a few things up, wait for light and hope to carve out some peace. Then darkness comes, shadows appear and everything begins again, again.”
The books have no Table of Contents but rather each page takes you through a kind of stream-of-consciousness, with the author giving consideration to the nature of the files he uses to how framebuilding as a craft has changed. From old school metalworkers in London in the 1970s, with no power tools or aspirations much above putting in competent work for the paycheque, to a world with online fora. He wrote in 2013: “A decade ago, my trade resembled a Y2K amalgam of needlepoint, craft brewing and drum circles.”
He also writes: “By the 1990s, many of the framebuilders who toiled at benches, the brands they grandfathered in, and a complete layer of cycling history began to vaporize. Nearly all the men I think of as having preceded me didn’t so much finish their careers as much as they parlayed them into larger commercial endeavours, or simply gave up.”
People entered the trade with some romantic notion of the maker as an uber-creative but Mr. Sachs, who is clearly proud to be a craftsman, dismisses the idea of a bicycle as an artwork. “A bicycle is a sporting good, and its frame has to be designed well, allow its user to assimilate an efficient position, and its aesthetic should please the maker, the owner, or both.” Still one senses more in “Arrange Disorder” that there is always the pursuit of perfection. Several times there is reference that every frame is different, every time there are things that go right and others not so much, that one is shaped by the metal as much as one shapes it.
Design matters. Mr. Sachs was not satisfied with the lugs on offer. He began to design his own in 1981 and have them forged, often with names that are salutes to the past–Newvex, Rene Singer, PegoRichie–as the line expanded. These are available to other framebuilders and at age 72 he tries to encourage other makers. He clearly has the aesthetic thing down. There is the careful font design from working with House Industries on his frames. We see this in the style and appearance of the “Arrange Disorder” books. They are pleasure to hold and invite the reader to leaf through them again and again, attractive chaos perhaps. There is even a haiku on Volume 2 on Page 40, which seemed inevitable. And to my eyes the elegant “RS” logo looks very much like the nib of a pen.
“Put in a nickel, get an opinion” it says in Volume 2. Mr. Sachs is noted for “atmo,” which means “according to my opinion”. He has a lot to say as one sees on Facebook or when going through the impressive and absorbing Sachs website. For someone who once received a damning “No Effort At All” note about his work on a report card this is pretty good.
Those about to reserve those 40 frames will know that the man who makes them has given five decades of thought to their meticulous construction. “Arrange Disorder” gives insight into that thought process.
“Arrange Disorder,” Volumes 1 & 2, by Richard Sachs
72 pages each, with illustrations, softbound
Deep River Books, Deep River Connecticut, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-89778-343-4 (Vol. 1)
ISBN: 979-8-89860-672-5 (Vol. 2)
# Each volume is US$28, or US$50 for Vols. 1&2 and may be ordered HERE. #
# Richard Sachs’ website is HERE. #
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