During his early racing years, Ritchey began building bikes for Palo Alto Bicycles and its national mail order catalog. In 1974, as his senior year in high school approached, Ritchey had already built approximately 200 frames. It was around this time he honed his fillet brazing or "lugless" method of fabricating frames. Ritchey sought to challenge bicycle industry standards of frame tubing diameter at the time limited by the use of fixed dimensioned lugs. Ritchey's fillet brazing construction method allowed the choice of larger thin-wall tubing diameters and unique ovalizations to create lighter -stiffer frames. By 1979, Ritchey had produced over 1,000 frames on his own.