Hey, I'm thrilled that VO is in business... I think they provide a wide variety of great and useful bike frames, parts and products at reasonable prices. I own a Campagne handlebar bag, which I think is a quality bag. Regarding their bike frames, VO seems to have picked up where Kogswell left off after Matthew Grimm closed up shop. I can easily envision a VO frame in my future... (or if I have a good year, possibly another Riv... oh well....)
I had the pleasure of meeting Chris at the 2009 NAHBS.. he's exudes a great bike vibe and attitude. On Feb 3, 4:08 pm, JoelMatthews <joelmatth...@mac.com> wrote: > Jitensha should not be included in a list of me too Riv companies. > > Jitensha has been around for quite some time, possibly longer than > Riv, though I am not certain on that. It is a local bicycle store > operated by a Japanese American that makes Japanese small shop bicycle > parts available in the United States. Jitensha has never tried to be > a mass marketer. It has an online catalogue, but no on line > purchasing. Jitensha rather quaintly shuts down when the owner goes > to Japan. > > Frankly, I never really saw VO as a me too company for that matter. > True Riv and VO sell steel bikes and market more toward the commuter/ > tourer than sporting cyclist. But Riv is and always has been focused > around GP's rather unique ideas on how a bike should fit and look. > VO's bikes are admittedly copies of classic French designs. > > The components Riv sells are usually not GP's designs, but rather nice > stuff Riv finds that seem like good matches for their bikes. GP will > usually only get into the component design fray when there is concern > the components manufacturers will otherwise stop making a useful > part. Riv does not distribute much, if any, components to local bike > shops (heck, it hardly distributes its frames to local bike shops any > more). > > As with its bikes, VO sells mostly reworked French designs made in > Taiwan shops under the VO label. VO sells its components on line, but > its main business is distributing them to bike shops around the U.S. > and even abroad. > > On Feb 3, 2:36 pm, Minh <mgiangs...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Allen, > > > I'm with you, i've been a Rivendell customer going back to 1999 but i > > hadn't bought anything since 2005 until 2010 building up my > > Hillborne. So all these new sources for what i considered Riv'ish but > > i guess others would use a more generic term, bike parts like Velo > > Orange, Jitensha, etc was a surprise to me. I don't know how long > > they've been around and i don;t attribute the resurgence of classic > > bike parts to Rivendell (but i'm sure their advocacy didn't hurt). > > But i do wonder how they all interact with each other. > > > It's also nice for me to have VO on the east coast as packages come a > > lot faster, and i can drive there in 2 hours in a pinch. I know some > > people are one or the other, but i don't find them mutually exclusive, > > there are things at VO i would not put on my own bike but that's just > > my style.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
