Greetings! I bought one of Alex Wirth's remaining RBW *Joe Appaloosa* bikes, the 58cm one. It arrived Wednesday, and I changed a couple of parts (saddle, tires, pedals; little things just to make it mine). Today I took it for a few minutes ride, all I had time for, and it was great. It gave me a permagrin. I would not have thought a 22-inch frame would be near big enough for me, but with the big tires the fit is very comfortable (such a short test ride, I know).
That's a Makeshifter Canvas Works *Outback* saddlebag (bought from another member of this list). Tomorrow the bike'll get a Nitto R10 saddlebag support rack to help hold it off the tire (that's why the picture shows a green zip tie holding the bag to the seat post). I think the butterscotch-colored frame looks good with the brown Brooks saddle and the brown Little Big Ben tires. At 38mm wide (nominal) the tires aren't so wide, but they're wider than the tires on any of my other bikes. Pressure is about five atmos, and they feel really cushy. I bought an RBW *Atlantis *frame last fall, but have not finished getting parts to build it up. When Alex Wirth posted notice of the remaining RBW bikes since the closure of his shop (sad!) I fell in love with the Appaloosa, especially the fork crown. Sure the Atlantis has a lovely fork crown, but it's the same as the crown on my Grant-designed Soma San Marcos (bought from fellow lister Nick). So I already have an example of that one. Anyway I'll be posting the Atlantis frame "for sale" on this group soon, FYI (59cm). I'll take this bike on a longer shakedown ride in a few days, along one of our local rails-to-trails MUPs. There's one that runs thru Turnbull Wildlife Refuge, and then the pavement runs out and it's just RR ballast (very coarse gravel, albeit nice and level). I want to see how the bike feels on that rough surface. I bet it'll be nice, whereas it's pretty punishing on narrow tires. I hope the link to a groogle pics web address works. I looked for a "sticky" on the best way to post pics to the group, but didn't find it. I will be pleased to learn a better way if you share it with me. Cheers, Eric "Limper" Grim (Spokane) https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipPjqqbJmD1ZZDg6YhOvN0AeFPYMRsmC5MOSefM -- 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. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/d0e9aa95-de60-4242-8b34-e5183952f7fe%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
