Henry James Bicycles makes, right here in the USA:

• Investment cast steel lugs, crowns, bottom bracket shells, and dropouts for custom bicycle frames
• Bicycle Frame Building Jigs including our ACCESS 65 and ACCESS 100 Jigs
• Bicycle Frame Alignment Systems
• We also proudly distribute American made True Temper double butted steel bicycle tubing and True Temper Alpha Q Composite Components

THE PATEREK MANUAL For Bicycle Framebuilders - THIRD EDITIONHenry James Publishes and Distributes this "How-To" book on custom bicycle frame building by Framebuilder and author Tim Paterek.

A bicycle is a surprisingly complex and subtle machine. The range of things people want to use a bike for far exceeds what any maker can possibly sell from stock. Our customers, Custom Frame Builders, make fine custom frames that fit the rider perfectly

Stock bicycles come in a range of basic sizes, but that's about it. Stock frames do not allow for the wide range of proportions the human body comes in. Stock frames don't fine tune the tubing diameter and wall thicknesses to optimize the feel of the frame for the kind of riding you want to do.

Check out an incomplete list of reasons why people ride bicycles. Lots of these reasons don't require a custom bike, just a reliable and practical one. When miles ridden, time spent riding, speed, and terrain get more demanding, and your interest in bicycling itself increases, custom bikes with investment cast lugs start making sense. Even if you have average body dimensions, factors like body proportions, strength, weight, and riding style, become important factors. Henry James is your source for top quality American made lugs, jigs, and tubing for custom bicycle frames. This Henry James web site is intended to help your bicycling activities produce the results you are looking for by getting you on the right bike for you.

Steel has a lot going for it. No other frame material can make all these claims:

• Tensile strengths of steel bicycle tubing have doubled in the last few years, leading to lighter and livelier, and most importantly, more comfortable frames.
• Steel frames can be brazed at low temperatures with minimal metallurgical effects because, unlike in welding, the tube is not melted.
• Brazed steel frames need little or no alignment after building.
• Esthetically and technically superior brazed lug construction can only be used for steel frames. Steel lugs reinforce the joints allowing lighter gauge tubing. This leads to longer lived frames and a more responsive ride.
• Steel has a higher density than other frame materials so it provides a more lively ride and better feedback when riding at close to the limit of traction.

SITE UPDATES:

There are over 130 pages in this site. Less than 10 are about the technology of our investment cast steel lugs. Most of the pages are here to provide helpful information. If you stop and think about it, you have ideas, visions, or goals in your head about the way you want your life to be. If you are checking out this site, you think that you can use a bike to help make some of that happen. Your goal is not to "buy a bike". The bike is simply the tool or way you intend to get what you really want. Those who base their actions on how big the ad campaigns are and how much hype there is, are not going to be happy in the long run.

80 pages are about our Custom Frame Builders and how to locate them. We are in the process of completely updating the Builder list, so keep checking back.