I've had my orange Rambouillet since the evening before riding across the country from Yorktown. My '92 RB-1 got twitchy after four hours and I got tight, achy shoulders from riding it that long despite bar and stem experiments. Funding the Rambouillet was its highest and best use.
The Ram was and has been a stable and confident ride for me. I ride it in tight hilly places as well as fairly long flat stuff, day or night. Planing, tires, fit, whatever the reason, mine has worked. I've never been a stable-keeper, just a commuter/rough stuff bike and a lighter fun bike. Andy Cheatham Pittsburgh On Saturday, April 5, 2014 8:39:57 AM UTC-4, RJM wrote: > > I don't have any experience with a Ram except my Roadeo is the same orange > color so I can't help you with the steering issue or wallowing through > turns. If I may suggest though, I would try some good tires on it before > you give it up for good. I really do feel really good fast feeling tires > make a bike feel faster. Other than that, if you are set up on the Ram > correctly and don't have any fit problems, which sometimes can affect power > output and of course ride feel, I don't see much reason to keep a bike you > aren't jelling with. > > One question thought, do you just feel a performance difference, or have > you kept some track of it through a bike computer? I'm just curious if the > bike is actually slower than your others or just feels that way. > > I do find a difference in feel when switching tires from bad to good > though, so that is the one place I would make a change if I was going to > keep that bike. > > On Friday, April 4, 2014 12:44:27 PM UTC-5, Jeff Ong wrote: > >> So, I've got a lot of bikes and zero cars. Only two are conventional >> "road" type bikes (a 2004 Merlin Fortius and an '84 Nobillette). Many are >> mountain bikes, and my daily rider/commuter is a 1995 Voodoo Bizango that >> I've added rack/fender eyelets to, converted to drops and 2 inch Schwalbe >> Marathons, and basically made into a sort of Atlantis type ride. >> >> About a year ago, I bought a secondhand (or third- or fourth-hand, who >> knows?) Rambouillet (from the first run of framesets, in pearl orange). My >> idea was to have a sporty road/light tourer with fenders, since I live in >> Portland, where it drizzles seven months of the year. I built this up with >> a pretty Riv-like collection of stuff -- a VO triple crankset, platform >> pedals, some nice wheels and Pasela 28s, Shimano 9-speed bar end shifters, >> bars a bit above saddle height, etc. It's super pretty, everyone oohs and >> ahs over it, etc. >> >> The problem is, I kind of hate riding it. It just steers like a pig, >> wallowing through turns, and it feels super slow to accelerate. I get >> terrible pedal strike unless I coast around every turn. I've really tried >> to get used to the ride, but I always find myself getting angry when I'm >> out on the bike... like "hurry up, man! come on!" I'm a decent enough >> mechanic to know that there isn't anything mechanically wrong. I do think >> this bike is bigger on me than I generally ride -- I'm 6' tall and this is >> a 58cm, and generally I ride smaller than that, although it's difficult to >> compare compact frames against this more traditional geometry. The bike >> isn't super light (27 lbs or so with fenders and racks), but many of my >> bikes are around that weight or heavier. >> >> Am I just not cut out for Riv-type geometry? Is it poorly fit to me? Is >> there something about the Rambouillet that just makes it slow-steering and >> ponderous? I would love to swap out this frameset with something livelier >> and more fun to ride (but that can still take racks and fenders with 28mm >> tires), and I'm just hoping to not make the same mistake. Any insights >> would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
