Neat thread 1961 - learned to ride on my sister's Glider (English brand that Eaton's carried) - nice, smooth and quite light bike...electric blue with white fenders and nice almostNitto North Road type bars 1962 - moved to Winnipeg and inherited my other sister's late 40's CCM. But it was my bike. Then got first sister's Glider 1968-1971 - abandoned bikes for other adolescent hormonal pursuits 1972 - I came back to my senses .1st 10-speed bought from local hardware. Truly scary riding that thing in the rain with the steel rims and crappy brakes. My mother's boyfriend owned a 60's Legnano which had chromed lugs and was painted an unfortunate shade of Mountsin Dew yellow-green, but rode like a thoroughbred compared to my mule 1973 - Read Richard Ballantine's book about Bicycles (cool guy w ponytail wrenching an immaculate Condor) and basis that bought a Peugeot PX-10. ^ months later it was stolen and I replaced it; 10 years later that one was stolen out of our garage in Charleswood , but luckily Gooch's had another model in the basement that our insurance paid for 1984 - Cannondaly M500...the funky one with the 26" front and 24" back wheel. Cool bike. Sold it to a coworker 1986- Joined touring club. Rode around Manitoba a bunch on Peugeot PX10 3...which was not ideal for some of the hills we have or carrying panniers.Lives now as a terrif single-speed I got a screaming deal on a Cannondale 18-speed touring bike. Indexed shifting. This worked really well as a loaded tourer and was fun to ride unloaded too. I also bought a Rossin w Super Record..nice Italian racer but I never totally warmed up to it. Sold it in 2007 or so to a neighbour who kind of collected and rode Italian bikes 1991 Cannondaly SM2000 mountain bike with the Pepperoni forks. Still have it but don't ride it 1993 - Bought the iconic, much loved 1993 orange X0-1. I'd never get rid of this bike. My wet weather commuter 1997 - Enamoured of all things Bridgestone, ordered the very lovely All-Rounder...a deluxe version of the X0-1, but a smoother more refined ride 2000 - Ordered my Riv road as the road bike I should have had I like practical, elegant, well-made and unique bikes. If I fell into a CF racer I wouldn't be unhappy, but I'm perfectly happy without one Next? A custom mixte (I am 61 after all) may be in the cards at some point. Also, with this interminable winter, I'm sort of jonesing for a fatbike Ryan - Winnipeg
On Friday, February 28, 2014 11:13:47 AM UTC-6, jinxed wrote: > Over the last couple weeks I have been fortunate to get out and ride each > of the bikes in my stable. This offered some really surprising comparisons > and conflicted some of my previous thoughts on each bike. My bikes are USA > made and they're all steel, and I'm attached to all of them. They also > happen to be different wheel sizes. 26" Riv AR, 650b OAC Rambler, 29" Spot > MTB, and 700c Cross/race. > > My biking trajectory was BMX - MTB - Cross - Road - and now is some sort > of hybrid of all those. I was a staunch opponent of 29er and clung to 26" > adamantly until I finally gave up and tried the larger wheel size. I had to > eat a lot of crow when I enjoyed it. Since then I've never gone back to 26" > off road, but still held on to romantic praise for it. > > CX was just a natural offshoot of MTB when trying to ride on the road. > Although I raced road bikes, I much preferred riding them in the dirt. My > ultimate ride is a fast swoopy twisty turny jaunt through wooded > singletrack on a CX bike. It's what my bike dreams are made of. > > My first Rivendell was also my first 650b and it felt like a bridge > between the MTB and CX. It seemed to be the true all round that perfectly > fit the way I wanted to ride, and more importantly where I have the most > access to ride. I have several dirt trails I prefer riding on, but I must > take pavement to get there. I think the best aspect of the Rivendell line > in it's entirety is that they do well in many types of terrain. Obviously > age and life circumstances affect how and where I ride, but I find much > more enjoyment out of the exploration type of riding I'm doing now. I > attribute much of that to this list and the ideals behind the bike designs. > > This brings me to my recent riding. If I had ranked my bikes based on > mental attachment, it would have been AR, CX, 650b, 29er. But after riding > them all back to back I realized my enjoyment of the ride of those bikes is > a different sequence: 650b, CX, 29er, AR. > > I'm surprised I prefer larger diameter wheels, because I refuse to admit > 26" is dead! But if I were to choose, 650 is the smallest platform I'd go > to. > -- 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/groups/opt_out.
