Feature by Mike Richeson "Vanilla doesn't necessarily have anything to do with bikes. Vanilla is a tome and a feel. It represents how I want my bikes to be."

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index Previous Features | Send mail to The Voice Cycling enthusiasts enjoy a taste of vanilla White sets up a customer's bike before shipping. -Mike Richeson, photo Cyclists dream of the perfect bike. It consumes their time and energy and much of their money. A growing number of people who travel the world on two wheels instead of four are turning to a custom frame builder in southeast Portland to make their dreams a reality. They turn to Sacha White, the owner and sole employee of Vanilla Bicycles. White, 26, goes to work every day in a quiet residential neighborhood where he rents space in an oversized garage. His work area is small, taking up less space than many master bedrooms. He works alone, with only his radio to keep him company. He is putting the finishing touches on a bike that is about to be shipped. The decals on the wheels need to come off, so he sits down and carefully begins peeling the stickers off the rims. He is, at his own admission, obsessed with details. He completes in an hour what most people do in 15 minutes. But the end product shows his commitment; he builds his bikes with intense care. "Maybe it's not the best way to run a business," he said, "but I don't spend so much time on the bikes for just my customers. It's for my own satisfaction as well." The woman who is expecting this bike has waited patiently for it. Customers line up for six months to get a Vanilla, but White never turns anyone away. "I let my waiting list turn them away," he said. "If they want to wait, great, but I try to be real up front with them about the wait. I try not to make promises I can't keep just to make a sale." You won't find a Vanilla in any bike shops. Cyclists interested in ordering a bike can either call him at his shop or send an email. After customers make an appointment with White, he takes multiple body measurements and determines exactly what they want to use the bike for. If the customers live out of state, White sends them to a certified fit specialist and includes the price, about $150, in the cost of the frame. "I could keep the money for myself if they just sent me their own measurements," he said, "but then I wouldn't be sure if they did it correctly. A couple of centimeters make a big difference." Once the frame sizing and geometry are determined, customers choose either a filet brazed frame or a frame made with lugs. Both styles are labor intensive and take 40-60 hours to build. Filet brazing uses brass to join mitered tubes and allows for non-traditional frame designs. Lugs use metal sleeves with melted silver to join the frame's tubing. The lugs, which are usually sculpted and painted, add an artistic look to the bikes. "My bikes have a classic feel that appeals to a lot of people," White said. "There is so much tech out there that it isn't special." Joseph Marek, a sport class bicycle racer, ordered a filet brazed frame from White when he wanted a specially designed mountain bike. "Sacha is really low-key and easy to work with," Marek said. "The frame turned out wonderfully -- fine attention to detail and excellent workmanship. I have thrashed the bike pretty hard with no problems." Durability isn't the only thing that attracted Marek to Vanilla bicycles. "Sacha is unique in builders that I have worked with," Marek said. "He adds an artistic flair to his work while making the frame functional and durable." The stickers are off, but they left residual glue on the rims. White walks to his bench covered with files and drafting paper and grabs a bottle of acetone and returns to his stool. He wets a towel with the solvent and begins to wipe down the rims to remove the glue. White began racing bikes when he was 9 but soon quit. In his teens, he restored old Italian scooters, which helped hone his eye for the little details that make his bikes unique. In 1997, at age 21, White moved from Boulder, Colo., to Portland, Ore. He became a bike messenger and grew more involved with bikes, especially his own. He experimented with expensive parts for his bike, but found the mechanical side didn't satisfy him. "You can only be excited about a new part for so long," he said. In 1999, he visited master frame builder Tim Patereck of Vancouver, Wash. The experience turned him on to the thought of building frames for himself. He found it a much more satisfying task because it fit his detail-oriented personality. After saving money for a year making deliveries on his bike, he paid for seven days of intensive training with Patereck. "Sacha was an excellent frame-building student with a lot of drive and enthusiasm," Patereck said. "He really loves what's he's doing now." This was White's only training. He set out on his own to build frames and named his budding business Vanilla Bicycles. "Vanilla doesn't necessarily have anything to do with bikes," he said. "Vanilla is a tone and a feel. It represents how I want my bikes to be." Frame building started as a hobby. He worked all day and built frames in any spare time he had, which was little with a wife and 1-year-old daughter at home. A frame took him four to six weeks and about 100 hours to build. "I was a little intimidated [about starting Vanilla] because my family's welfare was resting on this," he said. "My wife wasn't totally into it at first, but now she is incredibly supportive. If I feel insecure, she supports me." Six months after his training, he sold his first frame, which he built on borrowed equipment. White made $100 profit. The frame was only the third one he'd ever produced and the first frame anyone ever rode. Three years later, Jeff Struck, an A-level cyclocross bike rider, still races on the Vanilla frame White built. Now Vanilla frames sell for a minimum of $1,050. The glue is off the rims, but White is still wiping them down. They are not just clean, but they shine because of the buffing. Not many builders would put in the time to polish rims, especially because his work will be ruined five minutes into the first ride. During White's first year of creating frames, his bikes began showing up on podiums at races. Racing his own Vanilla bikes, he won both the Oregon and Washington State Championships for cyclocross in the B category. "That was a crazy time for me as a frame builder," he said. "Part of me was expecting the bikes to fall apart. I was nervous." His bikes didn't fall apart, and since he's been in business, the only problem he's had was a tiny crack in a weld on a customer's bike. He guarantees his frames for life against defect or failure. Little by little, White began selling more and more bikes. After a year of using equipment that wasn't his own, he invested $5,000 into buying his own tools and renting some shop space. "I'm afraid of debt," he said. "I didn't want to have a big loan to start off with, but I did want to take part in creating a business. I didn't go big right away because if it wasn't something that was satisfying, I didn't want to be tied down so I had to keep doing it." About a year-and-a-half ago, Vanilla finally became his only job. White had unfinished orders that needed to be done, so he took off a month to build frames. At the end of the month, he had more orders and was still busy, so he took off another month. He never returned to his old job. Vanilla bikes continue to show up on podiums at major races all over the United States. Rhonda Mazza won the 2002 Oregon State Cyclocross Championships on a Vanilla. Steve Fassbinder won the 24-hour Single Speed World Championships on a bike Sacha built, and Chad Swanson, on a Vanilla, placed fifth in the 24-hour race at Worlds. Vanilla bicycles sell completely by word of mouth. Sacha does no advertising but maintains his website, vanillabicycles.com. His out-of-state business comes from racers encountering Vanilla bikes at events and Internet buzz on bicycling forums. On the back of Sacha's craftsmanship and creativity, Vanilla continues to grow as a company. He projects making 50 bicycles in 2003 compared with 35-40 in 2002. He wants his bike sales to grow, but he doesn't want his company to get much bigger. "I thought I would want to take on employees," he said. "After playing around with that, I'm feeling like I want to build by myself. There is no need to build hundreds of frames a year. I want to keep Vanilla unique." The wheels have finally passed his inspection, and he sets them into the bike. The front wheel goes in quickly and easily, but the rear wheel demands more time. It must be set up perfectly. He eyeballs it for awhile and aligns it within the frame. He props up the bike and takes a few steps back to sweep his eyes over his creation for a couple of minutes. He smiles and hangs the bike back on the wall. Tomorrow it will be shipped, and Whiteis satisfied. Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index Previous Features | Top Of Page Send mail to The Voice| Journalism department website © 2003 The Voice. No part of this publication may be reproduced in written or electronic form without prior written consent from the journalism adviser of Multnomah Bible College. All rights reserved.