I have one of the early Homers, built by Toyo. It's a 59. I ride it everywhere.
Back a while ago, Brian Eno was interviewed and spoke his ideal band. He cited the melodic sense and attention to timbre of Kraftwerk, mated to the rhythm section of Parliament/Funkadelic. Arguably, he got close during the "Stop Making Sense/Remain In Light" period of Talking Heads. That idea has always been how the Hilsen feels to me. Perhaps the more appropriate analogy would be a Ferrari with Hummer suspension. When GP was riding the East Bay Hills on the bike which was not named Honus Wagner - https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeromehaines/189470883/in/album-72157594198990353/ - 32 mm on a "road" tire was pretty honkin' big. (...and the 650B was fairly fringe, and GP had recently self-stitched a 603 together to experiment). At the time, I was doing CX races, and really wanted to see about obtaining a Legolas. I wanted some lever-shiftable gears as an alternative to the Quickbeamm which I was riding everywhere and enjoying much, much more than my multi-geared, soft-nosed mtb. When I visited the RBWHQ&L, Grant pushed me out on this new bike, on tires which he warned me were "too small" (Rolly Polly 28's) and I came back a believer. Since I'd been riding my CX-specific bike on mixed-terrain rides, I had something to compare it to. The Hilsen just outclassed that bike, handled better and gave me a much more comfortable ride. https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyclofiend/sets/72157602016418451/ http://www.cyclofiend.com/cc/2008/cc522-cyclofiend_jim0908.html I rode, raced (CX), centuried and brevet-ed with the Homer, and do not think anything of riding it from A to B with strong vectors toward any terrain that interests me. I'm kinda partial to JB Greens. Though I've run knibblies on it as well. But, I like the ride with the JB's, and the aesthetic of running them on trails, rocks and whatever. As far as the Sam, I do recall when Grant was tweaking that design. My recollection is that he viewed it a notch closer to Atlantis than the Hilsen, mostly because they had the Roadeo/San Marcos, which a notch the other way. Like many things, the design itself suggests refinements, and he's always thinking about how to make something more of whatever it is. As with most of Grant's designs, the tuning, the tweaking and the refinements are all for you to do. What you'll find is that whatever idea you might have, you can probably do it with the Hilsen. - Jim / cyclofiend.com https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=93409214%40N00&sort=date-taken-desc&text=hilsen&view_all=1 -- 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.
