Well - I worked there for 3 summers (81-83), so I guess I got to see the transition from road to mountain bikes. My memory is still pretty good about how the bikes were made (although a bit marginal for people's names!).
In 1981 we made very carefully handbuilt road frames (I am still fortunate to have mine). Frame geometry was done on Chris' HP calculator for each customer. Chris was very picky about all aspects of the bikes - I remember spending hours hand filing lugs so they were perfect thinness all the way around (but never seemed to be quite perfect enough!). Precise frame alignment, perfect tube mitering & silver solder brazing were all standard policy. Paint jobs were in Imron which was probably poisoning the guys from the bar next door when they were fighting in the alley behind the shop.
Seemed to be very little money in those days. Me & the other guys in that photo were paid a pittance, but all of us ended up building our own frames, so that was pretty good barter. Most of the profit to support the shop was paint jobs, frame repair, braze-ons, etc. We used to replace entire front ends (top, head & down tube) on crashed bikes. In those days most of the good road bikes were Italian and the US bikes were pretty cheesy. However, as quality "American" frame builders I remember we all took some perverse pleasure when hacksawing Masis & Colnagos in half when they came in for repair!
There was definitely some bravado against the Italian bikes - they looked beautiful, but sometimes we found the brazing quality, alignment or mitering gaps were not that great. Sometimes they were tack welded inside the bottom bracket which meant they were brazed off the jig (which possibly explained some of the alignment issues). Chris always pointed this stuff out to make sure it didn't happen on his frames.
The thought of welding anything on a bike instead of using low-temp brazing was definitely scorned. The '82-'83 mountain bikes were all fillet brazed (they didn't make lugs big enough in those days). It was in '83, when Gary showed up (pulling his welder on a trailer behind his bike), where the welding misconception was cleared up.
Although the modest bike production was starting to show signs of life by '83 it was definitely still "small time". I have to say I'm very impressed with how successful those guys ended up getting (and all the other fat city spin-offs). In retrospect it was the right time for a relatively new idea (mountain bikes) and there were not too many other shops delivering the high quality/engineering/craftsmanship standards that Chris insisted on.
Anyway, looks like I've written quite a bit. Regards, Bob