“All these tubes are pretty high strength; you can’t really bend them hardly at all. You can only bend them a little tiny bit. So they have to be pretty close to start with. It used to be material was a lot weaker. You could bend it with your hands. But tube materials got a lot stronger, and they were able to make bikes lighter. It made it harder to align the frame. So we had to get a lot better at basically welding them into alignment.

“So he’s going to start welding on the other side first. That will pull it or shrink it toward the weld. So they’ll pull it a little way first. Then they’ll check it. They’ll check it a couple of times. Then they’re done.”

Nevertheless, the frames make a final trip to the alignment table after welding. If they are still slightly out of alignment, a huge lever and old-fashioned elbow grease are employed to bend that last little tiny bit.

Of the original founders, only Lloyd is left. Jeff has a business selling tools to frame builders. Mike pursues his own idiosyncratic vision in his own one-man shop far outside town. Now Lloyd is president of a company with 12 fellow enfranchised workers.

And a majority stockholder, also chairman of the board, Gary Smith. Gary first encountered Independent Fabrication in his previous job, president of the outdoor products division of Timberland. In 2004, Timberland and Independent were teamed in a CNN reality TV program called “The Turnaround.” The format was for large companies to extend their expertise by mentoring small companies.

Gary is an enthusiastic cyclist and got the role of mentor. After the show, he kept in touch, bought a bike, and eventually the controlling interest of Independent. About the bike purchase, he says, “I’m tall and lanky and so physically need a custom bike.” About the company he jokes, “I could have either had a really nice bike collection or a really nice bike company.”

Gary’s analysis is that the company’s challenges fell into two “big buckets:”

1. Under-capitalization. They were always just one step ahead of the sheriff relative to cash flow, not to mention being able to make any kind of investments.

2. Leadership. There were 6 original founders, 3 bike makers and three “business people”. There was this us-vs.-them mindset, the office vs. the shop. “And that ‘s the kiss of death” in a small business that is really dependent on the shop. “There was no one to call the ball.”

Lloyd accepts Gary’s leadership. Gary is from Maine and grew up working in textile mills, “saw people working really hard and treated poorly. All those mills are shut now. In Bridgeport, there’s nothing left.” Lloyd feels that Gary shares a sense of building things, a desire that “not everything be imported.”

Lloyd can hold his passion about building bikes close to his chest. “When you’re making a bike you’re making a product that’s not really hurting the earth or anything. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not like making a missile or M-16 or even a car… It’s a pretty small footprint on the earth. You know you can be kind of proud that you kind of did something that’s good at the end of the day.”

Above the shop floor, in graffiti is a motto, “Live the Dream.” I ask Lloyd about this. He says it’s tongue-in-cheek. “People make OK money but it’s not like getting rich or anything.” The dream was we worked at Fat City and everybody got laid off. I wanted people to have jobs.”