Rough Crafts | hand made in Taiwan

Since last time we were in Taiwan visiting Mark Huang and his Crazy Arc, I decided to stay a little bit longer, cause I remembered a photo posted back in may this year in the photo of the day category.

this one …

I remember I loved the simple lines and the beefy fat bastard look of this bike and I decided that I really had to find out more about the builder, but time flies and it seems that I didn’t manage to get it done….

up till now!

so, I got in touch with the guy behind Rough Crafts, Winston Yeh (another name that should be remembered), a good friend of Mark Huang…small world? well, Taiwan seems to be smaller…

A great guy, very open minded, communicative and a great craftsman; an artist. And not only because of  the special touch given to his bikes, but also due to his street art background…

here’s some of his work…

… furniture, or as he calls it furniexperiment …

we’re talking about bikes, street art, graphix, furniture, and so on.

Why?

Winston: ” To me it’s all about creating something I like and personalizing it with the style that represents me“

… because he enjoys working with anything he can do with his own two hands.

About the custom work coming out of the Rough Crafts shop …

this guy should be a very good example for romanian builders, considering Taiwan’s legislative similarities on choppin  shit up and then releasing it on the streets.

For short:

legislative environment = a major blockage on expressing your imagination and design

(this is the reason you don’t see that many extreme builds from these regions, many of the projects dying at birth)

Major modifications done on a bike, not to speak building one from scratch, tend to be in some cases almost impossible, and very expensive to homologate or register. Still, Winston manages to come up with some interesting customs without any major modification; or better said, without any major mods that would require facing up to the shitty laws.

If at first he saw this legislative situation as a limitation for his designs, now he thinks of it more as “being fun” to work within these rules, and maybe because, in this situation, he’s even more compelled to strive and come up with better and better designs …

… or maybe is just he’s way of seeing the glass half full?

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the shop

the style

like Winston calls it – “The New Old School” … a direction that he is “obsessed” with.

the beggining

@ 19 years old when he bought he’s first bike, a Yamaha 150, which became he’s “motorcyle building 101″

the influence

the popularity of old school/vintage bike building trend from Japan and the styling philosophy encountered during the year spent @ RSD/PM

the obsession

building bikes, the whole process, the design, the annoying little mishaps, the machining, the fabrication … “It’s fascinating and exhilarating!“

the man

the bikes

COBALT MANIA

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THE SILVER GLITTER

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THE GOLD KNOCKER

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BS X4 CHOP

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THE BRASS RACER

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and last but not least, the bike that made me want to expose Rough Crafts to you people …

THE IRON GUERRILLA

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“Ignore all critics if you believe in your vision and prove them wrong with your work. In the end it’s not about performance or great engineering, it’s about a bike that you will always be proud of.“

WINSTON YEH

ROUGH CRAFTS