{"id":12401,"date":"2025-08-21T09:52:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T08:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/?p=12401"},"modified":"2025-12-13T09:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:43:06","slug":"going-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/2025\/08\/going-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back – Going Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"en\"I started framebuilding in 2008, after attending UBI's Titanium framebuilding class with Jim Kish in Ashland, Oregon. It came at a time in my life where I needed to build stuff with my hands, to escape from a desk job that paid the bills but lacked purpose. We are now in 2025. During those 17 years, I built around 200 frames: for me, for family, for friends and for the many framebuilding class students that came to visit and the occasional custom frame buyer. The truth is, that I never saw this as a business, it was mostly driven by a passion, to build, to share, to experiment. I am not a salesman, I always thought that objects or services should sell themselves, if they serve a purpose, fulfill a need or spur a dream.<\/strong> But the laws of economy, like the laws of physics, always bring you back on the ground and in today's world if you want to develop something in a niche market like custom framebuilding, you need to rake far and wide and let the world know that you exist. Today that means using social media, that means posting and shouting louder each time to reach people that are already drowning in a constant noise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the loss of my bigger brother at the end of April, I took a step back, pushed on the pause button and took the time to contemplate the past and imagine the future. The noise suddenly stopped and I realized that I don't need to sell bikes, post on social media, follow the trends or keep up with what everybody else is doing. I can open and close the workshop door whenever I want, it's there, it's paid for and it's not going anywhere<\/strong>. I can just go back to building bikes, for me, for family and friends and that's enough, I can close the company, close Instagram, the books, the accounts, the email, the VAT, the tax and the customs declarations. Keep the good stuff, get rid of the rest. So that's what I did.<\/p>\n

oTmBikes is officially closed for business and opened at my leisure<\/strong>: to build stuff that makes no economic sense but puts a smile on someone's face, starting with my son and his new old-school BMX !<\/p>\n

\"en\" J'ai commenc\u00e9 la construction de cadres en 2008, apr\u00e8s avoir suivi le cours de construction de cadres Titane de l'UBI avec Jim Kish \u00e0 Ashland, dans l'Oregon. C'est arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 un moment de ma vie o\u00f9 j'avais besoin de construire des choses avec mes mains, pour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 un travail de bureau qui payait les factures mais manquait de sens. Nous sommes maintenant en 2025. Au cours de ces 17 ann\u00e9es, j'ai construit environ 200 cadres : pour moi, pour ma famille, pour des amis, pour les nombreux participants aux cours de construction de cadres qui venaient me rendre visite et pour les acheteurs occasionnels de cadres personnalis\u00e9s. En r\u00e9alit\u00e9, je n'ai jamais consid\u00e9r\u00e9 cela comme un m\u00e9tier ; c'\u00e9tait surtout une passion : construire, partager, exp\u00e9rimenter. Je ne suis pas un vendeur; j'ai toujours pens\u00e9 que les objets ou les services devraient se vendre d'eux-m\u00eames, s'ils servent un but, r\u00e9pondent \u00e0 un besoin ou suscitent un r\u00eave. <\/strong>Mais les lois de l'\u00e9conomie, comme celles de la physique, vous ram\u00e8nent toujours \u00e0 la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 et, aujourd'hui, si vous souhaitez d\u00e9velopper quelque chose sur un march\u00e9 de niche comme la construction de cadres personnalis\u00e9s, vous devez ratisser large et chercher a vous faire conna\u00eetre. Aujourd'hui cela veut dire les r\u00e9seaux sociaux, cela veut dire publier et crier toujours plus fort pour atteindre des gens d\u00e9j\u00e0 noy\u00e9s dans un bruit incessant.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Avec la perte de mon grand fr\u00e8re fin avril, j'ai pris du recul, j'ai appuy\u00e9 sur bouton pause et j'ai pris le temps de contempler le pass\u00e9 et d'imaginer l'avenir. Le bruit s'est soudainement arr\u00eat\u00e9 et j'ai r\u00e9alis\u00e9 que je n'avais pas besoin de vendre des v\u00e9los, de publier sur les r\u00e9seaux sociaux, de suivre les tendances ou ce que font les autres. Je peux ouvrir et fermer la porte de l'atelier quand je veux, il est l\u00e0, il est pay\u00e9 et il n'ira nulle part<\/strong>. Je peux juste retourner construire des v\u00e9los, pour moi, pour ma famille et mes amis, et \u00e7a suffit ! Je peux fermer l'entreprise, fermer Instagram, la comptabilit\u00e9, le mail, les d\u00e9clarations de TVA, d'imp\u00f4ts et douani\u00e8res. Garder le bon et me d\u00e9barrasser du reste. Alors c'est ce que j'ai fait.<\/p>\n

oTmBikes est officiellement ferm\u00e9 aux affaires et ouvert pour le plaisir :<\/strong> pour construire des trucs qui n'ont aucun sens \u00e9conomique mais qui font sourire quelqu'un, \u00e0 commencer par mon fils et son nouveau BMX old-school !<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started framebuilding in 2008, after attending UBI’s Titanium framebuilding class with Jim Kish in Ashland, Oregon. It came at a time in my life where I needed to build stuff with my hands, to escape from a desk job that paid the bills but lacked purpose. We are now in 2025. During those 17 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12401"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12416,"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401\/revisions\/12416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.otmbikes.com\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}