This week I’m taking a slightly different tack and am interviewing an academic. My guest is sociologist Ben Brewer of James Madison University. Brewer picked up the cycling bug in the 1980s as a teenager and had the good sense never to lose his interest in the sport. Like many cycling enthusiasts, he appreciates a great custom frame; Brewer has owned several, including a Land Shark. As an academic, he became interested in just how big the custom frame building community is. It’s an interesting question: just how many custom frame builders are there? But Brewer wanted to know more than how many people are building, he wanted to get a picture of the profession. He has created an interesting survey for frame builders and he’s with us today to discuss it and what he hopes to learn from it.