I got introduced to Rivendell by my friend who introduced me to road riding. He is a big fan of lugged steel bikes and showed me the Saluki and told me that I needed to get that. At the time, I did my first road ride by changing my mountain bike tires to slicks. I enjoyed road riding, so I got my first lugged frame off ebay. It was a nice used Marinoni frame I purchased. This must have been around 2003-2004.
I appreciated the common sense approach to bicycling espoused by Rivendell and latched onto the comfort and safety of wider tires. I had my first child and wanted to take him on a trailer, so I got a used Surly Pacer that accepted "wide" 32 mm 700c tires. Using wide tires was a life and death matter for me because the roads were not always maintained, and there was a highly publicized local death near my house on Grizzly Peak Blvd. when a rider lost control on the road and went into incoming traffic--presumably due to poor road conditions. At this point, I was doing some long distance riding, and riding on a comfortable Rivendell was a big dream for me. I broke into this dream when I purchased a used Riv Rambouillet. I built up this bike myself and rode several brevets up to a 400k. At this point, I wanted even wider tires and more comfort, so I bought my first new Riv, the A Homer Hilsen. I put 38 mm Parimoto 650b tires and was sold on comfortable 650b frames. My first big ride was a 600k on this bike. During this period, the randonneur's dream tire was the 650b Grand Bois Hetre. The Parimoto was nice, but going to 42 mm was supposed to be the optimum of comfort and speed. I bought into that idea and converted my Rambouillet to 650b and honestly did find that the 42mm tires were amazing. At this point I ditched the Surly Pacer and made the A Homer Hilsen my commuter. The 650b Ram became my brevet bike and I did a whole ride series up to 600k with the Ram. The Marinoni was too twitchy and had a carbon front fork to boot, so it had to go and I bought a Roadeo for my "faster" road ride. The carbon fork is a big deal, as an acquaintance of mine who also did double centuries came to the top of Coleman Valley climb and as he was approaching the summit, the fork fell apart and he crashed. If he were 100 feet farther along on the descent, he might have been dead. Anyhow, I managed to do the Triple Crown Stage Race--not really a race for my buddy and I as we were the Lanterne Rouge, but we finished three of the toughest double centuries within the time limit (which was a challenge for the Terrible Two). Anyhow the Roadeo had plenty of good use there. The Ram was a great bike, but it was a bit kludgey as it was converted to 650b and the brakes barely fit and the dynamo lighting required wires everywhere, and the front rack used P-clamps. As you can tell, I just HAD to have a custom :-). The custom rides beautifully, it's so stable and comfortable and beautiful. I rode the SF Randonneurs Populaire this weekend, and I should have taken a picture as there were 50-60 bikes all lying on the grass, and my lone bike upright with a kick stand. OK, I did take the kickstand off for the 600k, but I tell you kickstands are way underrated in the rando scene. Anyhow, I bought my wife a Betty Foy which is the best bike she has ever ridden by far, and my family and I love the Hubbah Hubbah tandem. I even got a Cheviot with Albastache bars. I won't get any more Rivs in the near future unless they are for my kids or I want a divorce :-), but I am still dreaming of a mountain tourer when I have more time to do such stuff! Toshi -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
