There is a difference between hand made bicycles and all other high end items. The bicycle was and is the most minimalist of machines, designed for the one thing that has always facinated human kind since the beginning of human time. From the time that humans first found themselves on this earth there was the need and the desire to move around a little faster, always a little faster. How can I travel from one village to another in less time? How can I reach out across the earth and see a little more of it? The bicycle is somewhat on par with the shoe in that it seeks to make the process of speed possible with the least effort and the least baggage. The bicycle is always in the process of refinement, of minimalization, of paring away what is superfluous. The process of eliminating what is not needed is art. The art of less is more, is at once a discipline, a religion and a device for the common man. We can never tear away the root of what something is just to make it a plaything for the idle rich. The bicycle stands as a machine on par with the knife, the shoe, and the loincloth. No matter how perfectly the lugs are brazed and filed, the bicycle will always be the tool of the common man.
As far as I can see, the price of the finest bicycle has always stood in proportion to what it cost to manufacture it, plus either a minimal profit or a healthy profit. A 3 speed Rudge commanded a minimal profit, and a Colnago commanded a healthy one. The bicycle should never command an other worldly profit, even if the spirit that makes it has its roots in the most Godly aspirations that man is capable of.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl.