Peeking Through the Knothole

INTERVIEW WHO?

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:33:08 +0000

Who'd you like to see interviewed in a future RR? Send the name to grant@rivbike.com. In the subject field just put: Interview NAME. I'm not going to open the email, just read the name. If you have another thing going on, a question or whatever, I'm happy to respond to that, but in a separate one.
Interview names taken up through, say, May 20. Thanks. Don't click on More...

May have the spreadsheet thing taken care of.

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:56:02 +0000

So, hold off on the responses. Thanks to all who replied. If I don't get back to you, 'tis only 'cause too many tons of you. Best, Grant

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:44:31 +0000

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:54:19 +0000

We're getting LEGOLAS cyclo-cross frames in late June. Just like the Legolas from last year and the year before, it is specifically for racing cyclo-cross. So, it is not your typical "multi-cross-'muter" bike that's good for everything and happens to be a road bike with cantilevers and clearance.

The only hint that it has purpose outside of racing is the fender eyelets, front and rear, and the only reason it has those is that I/Grant refuse to design any bike that doesn't.

As a race bike, the Legolas is a successful--at least, as much as a bike can be "successful," it is. Mark here has won many races on his. A fellow named John Elgart won a national championship (masters category) on his, and Keven here races his in the toughest category, and testifies that his lugged steel Legolas has not kept him off the podium yet.

On the other hand, most of our 60-or-so Legolas owners don't race cross, but ride their Legolas bikes as winter bikes (fender clearance), trail bikes (knobby clearance, up to about 35mm), and lightweight road bikes (the tubing is lighter than we use for our non-race bikes).

The cost is $1800. Color is your choice of red or light, really light pale green, both with our standard cream head tube and lug accents. We're making 25 of them total, in these sizes: 51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 62.

To reserve one: Put down $200 non-refundable. You can do that by phone: 800 345-3918. We'll want to know your PBH, to make sure of the size. Best to talk to Mark or Keven, since they've been riding theirs for a few years already, and Keven is on top of the ordering, and so on.

You can read more about them under the Legolas frame section. Some of that will sound familiar if you've read this far.

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:21:24 +0000

THE READER will be mailed in maybe 3 weeks. Three weeks ago it was 68 pages, and we were going with that until the printing and mailing prices nixed it, so we're down to 44 pages, and the pages are bigger than normal. It may be the new normal, not sure.

It also may be the last of the b/w Readers and the last of the totally Free Paper Ones. I'm considering (and it's not up for vote, it's just a matter of what we can and can't afford to do)--I'm considering making it free online as a PDF, and then, if you want a paper copy, you pay $3 for it. That would help tremendously, and it may be the way to go.

Anyway, lots of folks are asking When? and three weeks from now is March 19. In your mailbox around the end of the month.

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:57:33 +0000

Last week was not fantastic. The always-determiner of fantasticism around here is delivery. It seems as though selling stuff should be the challenge. Or finding customers, or making payroll, or fixing computer bugs or something like that. With us, it's getting stuff. Frames, mostly. Then Japanese stuff. Then clothing. Basically, the basics. I will stop this bloggish whine now. Things will look up. If that's our big gripe, and it is, we're doing fine.

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:03:16 +0000

If you are the fellow who showed up today, Feb 2 at RIV at 4:30 in a Subaru (you-are-a-bus backwards), please contact me at grant@rivbike.com. Thanks.

Grant

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:54:21 +0000

I am working on RR40, but it's just inching along. For YEARS I've thought the RR should have some kind of a technical or even not technical Q&A column, or an Ask Le Mechanic column, or a Touring or Camping Q&A. WE GET ASKED a lot of questions, and usually answer them on the spot, and the next thing you know we're on to something else, and there goes a chance to fill up a sixteenth of a page of a 48-page READER.

Emailed questions with your name and city/state...that would help. I could make up some good ones myself, but it's not that critical.

Here's an unrelated thought that I was just thinking today. On one of the clear-coated Bombadils you can see the tubing maker's brand-mark., and it got me thinking that we could take a Sharpie to the bare frame and write Your Name or Hi Mom or Kilroy Was Here or A Cop Owns This & It Has a Tracking Device On It, or anything else on any part of the frame, discrete or quite obvious, and then preserve it under Belgium's finest clear coat for virtually ever.

The next time we clear-coat an unspoken for frame, I think we'll try that.

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:01:11 +0000

We haven't sent out a Rivendell Reader since about January, and many of you know why. Some don't (I get four to five emails a day asking about it), so the short answer is: Got a mousing injury that makes it hard for me to type. Am trying to fix it with assorted measures, and it's coming along slowly, but not fast enough to put out RR40 in the next month or even two.

I have notes and outlines and pages of hand-written articles, and will try to enlist some friends to help with typing and information-collecting, with the goal being a mailing before the end of the year. That's a dream, not a promise.

One thing that might help is reformatting the Reader, so it's more the physical size of VeloNews. That size lends itself to pages-of-boxes with bitesized and mouthfuls of somewhat useful and occasionally interesting info or tips that by themselves wouldn't warrant a full page, or even half a page, in the current pages size. And not only that--although it sounds bad to say this--it also lends itself to more frequent mailings of less significant information.

I know that sounds like we're taking it downhill, but I'd be careful not to do that. Sometimes we discover or find out about neat ways to do things on your bike, and right now they're just languishing here when they ought to be out there. Our interviews have been long up to know, and I like the long interview, but wouldn't it be OK to include a shorter interview or profile of some other worthy figure or company? I think it would be good.

There really are some neat things, some good things happening out there, and if I wait until we have a giant Faberge egg to cram them all into, it'll be old news by the time it comes out.

Shimano has some neat new things for 2008. But it still is ignoring normal bikes in favor of extremers.

The 650B thing isn't just a weird tiny underground thing anymore. Kirk Pacenti has run with the ball and is jazzing up mountain bike makers to build frames and bikes and tires for this new size, and it's working. In the mountain bike world there are 26-inch wheels and 29-ers, and you can't just throw in "650B" in there and have it stick, because it's a different language. It's like mixing Hebrew and Latin, click-talk and French, Welsh and Kiswahili. So in the mountain bike world, "650B" will likely be called "27.5" -- to the dismay and maybe shock of ascot-sporting preservationists -- but for the good of the breed overall. Who cares what it's called, so long as they make the rims and tires? Not moi (French).

The real naming solution is numbers, of course. Call it a 584, after its nominal bead seat diameter. But then you'd have to call 26ers 559s, and 700c-ers 622s, and you've got the esperanto challenge all over again. It doesn't matter what should happen.

But it will take some habit-breaking for me to start typing "27.5".

There are rumors of new tires from Panaracer (currently the leader in that size), and three from Kenda, and WTB is interested, and Schwalbe will likely add a third to its lineup of two. Once that all happens, other tire makers (late adopters) will jump in, and I bet by 2009, you'll be able to get them in that lengendary bike shop in Timbuktu, even.

Our new CATALOGUE will be mailed by the end of this month, and it will be in all mailboxes by November 20. It's not much different from the last one, but it has a new picture on the cover. I remember back in the early '70s, the Dan Bailey (fly fishing) catalogue had a close up of a Royal Wulff floating in an aquarium. It was a stunning photo, but every year I expected the new catalogue to have a new photo, and it never did, and I really wanted it to change. The thing about the photo that really bugged me was that the fly was tied on with a figure-8 knot. That works in gut, but not nylon, and it just hammered home the stagedness of it all. The knot was loose, too, to help the fly sit less-influenced by the knot and tippet, for the photo. If a fish took that fly, you wouldn't even be able to set the hook without losing fish & fly. Our pictures aren't technicallty as good as that one, but they're real-er in their own way.

Rivendell Bicycle Works — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:45:01 +0000

We got two round 2 Bombadil (650B MTN BIKE) prototypes last Thursday, and I built the 52 today, quickly (4.2 hours). We also got in a 60cm, for 700c wheels, but haven't built it yet. Next week.

Both were clear powder coated locally, in a day ($125 each).

Small details will change--we'll put on a kickstand plate, for one, and maybe we'll monkey around with the rack boss position. Anyway, the bike rides really good, just how I'd hoped and expected. I put Moustache Handlebars on it, with an 8cm DirtDrop stem. The tires are the 45mm-wide Schwalbes. Because of the thicker walls in the tubes, it takes a 26.8mm seat post, and I had to buy that at REI last night--a leftover, for $9.25. I was surprised to find that this old familiar and super common size is rare these days, but it makes sense, with all the overultra-sized tubes out there.

The 52cm frame will fit PBHs of 83 to 87, about. It has a 6-degree upslope on the top tube. I wanted to see how it set up and seemed to fit with Moustache Handlebars, and with that stem, seems fine.

Probably we will offer Bullmoose bars as an option for those who want them. They're not adjustable, but we might have them in two versions. I think, though, that the more upright you are, the less a few centimeters of reach matters.

If your body is 90-degrees straight up dead vertical (for instance), let's say that's comfortable. Now, if you lean forward so your nose is now in a pocket of air that used to be 6-inches in front of it, you'll be no less comfortable, but your reach has grown a whopping halfa foot. It works a similar way with your arms, too. If your arms are coiled up and as unstretched out as a snake charmer's cobra, you can unfurl them a lot without feeling stretched.

On a modern set-up with hi-seat/lo-bars/stretched out & straight-armed nearly maximally, a difference of half an inch in reach is huge, because you're already on the rack.

Anyway, the point is....when you're laid out flat that a cm here or there becomes a make-or-break deal. Bullmoose bars actually have more than one grip option. The normal one, and stretched out more on the connecdtor piece. When I rode them years ago, I was all over the bars and didn't think about it. I didn't ride them for years, but Bstone used them on a couple of models, and I've ridden them on old Ritcheys, too.

One thing that all Bullmoose fans like is the 16-degree sweepback of the grip. This was lost when the straight bar (6-degree sweep, typically) took over in about 1986.

No doubt Moustache H'bars have as many or more advantages, as do drop bars that are high enough, but a Bullmoose is still pretty good, and the case for it on a bike like the Bombadil is more than just style.

I shouldn't even say it like that. STYLE affects your mood and attitude when you ride, and to me (at least), slinging a leg over a Bullmoosed bar bike will make me feel different about the ride, and to some extent that's one of the points of having more than one bike. Still, I love the Moustache H'bar, and Albatross bars, and I'd like to try high drops on a short stem. We will offer bar options, as we do for all bikes.Bullmoose bars will be super expensive because they'll be hand-made and fillet-brazed by Nitto. They'll be heavy, too, but the bike IS going to be the Bombadil, not the Will-o-the-Wisp.

The Bombadil sample frame is made with all the correcdt tubingm, and doesn't weigh as much as I'd hoped and expected. Just 5lb 3oz before paint. I forgot to weigh it after painting, but paint is usually 2 to 2.5 ounces.

I will ride it more tomorrow. Here are some pics:

Had I known the grease would be so obvious in the head tube shot, I'd have wiped it off clean. It's the best-color I've ever seen. It happens to be Sta-Lube blue--the same boat trailer wheel bearing grease that Gary Fisher used to favor for the early '80s mountain bikes. Using it to coat the contact area between an aluminum headset and a steel frame is sort of like using a steel cable to hold up your pants, but it's as cheap as any other grease, and there's no harm in it. (I usually use lanolin for this purpose, but this was right there).

We also got in some early trial sample second versions of the IRD freewheels. I never had a problem with the first ones, but some did, and the reason was detected and fixed, seemingly. So we got half a dozen to try out, and I put one on my A.Homer Hilsen and tomorrow will ride it up the second steepest hill in Lafayette (Martino Drive). I don't expect it'll break, but I am supposed to try it, and so I will.