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Rivendell Bicycle Works • 2040 North Main #19 • Walnut Creek, CA 94596

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It's kind of how we feel about certain models, once we've heard something about your needs. But it's still fun to go fack and borth.

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The quote was from a trade publication in an article about electric motors in road bikes. The Italians are leading the world in that department, and the bike industry is eager to get the Italian "units," which are expected to hit the U.S. in the next six months, as I recall. There was some legal thing slowing down their importation. I'm not on top of it, I don't care, this is by memory.

Robert and Vaugh, when Vaughn was in Shipping here, developed a cheap-down-dirty-genius way of transfering newsprint to tape taught Will the ancient art of comic transfer. You get thick clear plastic packing tape, put it on the image, rub it in a bit, then let it soak (with your help) in water for 10 minutes. Then gently rub off the back, and there you go. You can rub lightlightly and keep some of the paper, or rub more and create a see-thru. I'll have to try it. I think my description might be bad.

 

This struck me kind of funny.

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Seattle-person Ana C. sent this postcard of for-the-most-part Gus Boots-Willsen anagrams in. What also struck me kind of funny is that she really liked doing this--she told me she was laughing aloud doing it--and "Ana" is part of "anagram" and  it's the only part of anagram that is itself an anagram.

Dwell on these!

Bwenoss Lugs-Lot  sounds Spanish

Go tell boss u-wins    could be bad advice. I can't imagine when it would be necessary, anyway.

Wogus Bollitsen    is a great bike name, but uses only 14 of the 15 letters; same as Bogus Wellinsot.   And she went way out of bounds with

ZOBOLTISSUM LUGE...but that would stop a future bike nerd in his or her or their tracks 20 years down the road, wouldn't it? On a bike, I mean.

------on a slightly heavier note, there's this one, good to be aware of-- it's from the Guardian, and they always like donations, but if the pops up you can click thru it. For the record and mentioned here only because I'm using a Guardian article for reposting purposes, I will mention that I've given them about $70 over the past year, but anyway, the LINK is

right here:

It's a mess, isn't it?

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It is impossible for a road or roadish bike to ride better than this one does on pavement. It's a new 58 Homer. Shown with 37mm tires, but I'd ride 40s or so. No matter, big deal, it's spectacular.

One of several hundred possible drive trains. We go for good value stuff that works, and unless you specify you want an XT derailer, we'll stop you at Deore. The Silver crank is as good as we'd envisioned and hoped. This is a 38x24 double, with a chainguard, on a 173mm crank. It's a Shimano 12x36t cassette.

BBillie Bars! I'll tape the area forward of the shifters. Two excellent hand positions on this bar...plus the semifunk one near the stem. Two and a quarter, then.

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 Here's a sample Rosco Baby frame, for behind-the-handlebar carrying of young children of a size and health their doctors say OK to. Notice the loooong effective top tube, to make room. The only way to understand that is to have carried babies in behind-the-handlebars carriers on bikes with normal length top tubes.

We're getting in samples by the end of the year, and will try them out here with Bosco and maybe Choco or Billie bars. Probably just Bosco. They all sweep back a lot. Three sizes: 45 for 26-inch wheels; 52 for 27.5-inchers (fat 650B); and 29 for fat 700c-'ers, They're made with surplus CLEM-like forks. These are single-purpose bikes, but I will absolutely ride at least two of them on trails, just for private personal educational purposes. If they don't work for babies as well as we expect, we'll either change the design or drop the project.

We plan to do one run of these, only. At some point you can expect us to ask you to put down $500 to $700 deposit on a frame, then wait four to five months for it. Doing so will save you $100 to $150 off the price of the frames once we have them in.

We're putting together a parts package, with some flexibilty built into it.

Will is the guy who'll follow up.