question about Rivendell Bicycle Works frames....

[mike_c]

Anyone here ride a bike built on a Rivendell Bicycle Works frame (especially a custom Rivendell)? BiggJawn? I'm trying to do some long term planning-- anytime we start talking about a bike that will weigh in at > $3,500 when built up we're talking long term planning-- and I'm looking for comments from folks who can say from their own riding experience whether they REALLY like riding their $2,500 Rivendell frame THAT much more than, say, a production Cannondale or Trek. I realize that the specifics of fit make this almost a matter of comparing apples to oranges, but what I'm really getting at is, if you owned several good quality bicycles AND a custom Rivendell, would the Rivendell generally be your first choice for, say, a 25 mile fitness ride? A half-century? The Markleyville Death Ride? A two-week tour?

[BiggJawn]

1. No Rivendells here...

Not that I don't think they're any good, it's a matter of Economics.

I know many people who have them and they wouldn't ride anything else.

My favourite bike is an old Bridgestone that I've set up "BOBishly", and on a ride this year I had the great opportunity to set it side-by-side with a Rambouillet and listen to people favourably compare the two. Lots of simularites between the 2...

$3500 bicycles are a LONG way down the road for me, too. Maybe I can scratch it together to get one before everything goes Mad Max on us...

[mike_c]

2. check out the Rivendell frame ordering process....

It takes about two years to get the frame and you send in $500 every few months whilst returning forms about your preferences. Frankly, I'd have to take a BIG gulp before I dropped the full price all at once, but I'm thinking I might be able to rationalize to it to myself a smaller bit at a time :-). I'm thinking in terms of long-term comfort-- I love my Cannondale R1000, but it's not a bike I'd really like to ride for more than a couple or three hours at a time, and of course, touring is out of the question. My commuter bike is set up for loaded touring, but its MTB geometry is just not the same as riding a fine road bike. I'm also considering a 'bent, but don't have any experience evaluating them....

[Gregorian]

3. roadbike review/mtbr are your friends.

I'm guessing it's a road bike. But Marlkeyville is definitely not road. The two websites that are pretty much the holy grail of biking, in my opinion, are roadbikereview and mtbr. Same webmaster, different sites.

I've heard of the make. I did a search on both forums, and came up without any dedicated hits. Google is also a good way to get some info. I found this review

http://www.roadbikerider.com/pr3.htm#Rivendell%20Rambouillet

make that

%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2F%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en

Darn it. My trails are all wet or I'd be out right now. Waaaaaa! :)

[mike_c]

4. oops-- Markleville Death Ride, not Markleyville....

It's a road ride-- 5 five Sierra Nevada pass crossings in one day (Monitor Pass, both directions, Ebbets Pass, both directions, and Carson Pass, one direction), 129 miles, 16,000 vertical feet (cumulative). I did NOT mean to imply that I am up to the Death Ride!

[Gregorian]

5. I thought the death ride was off road.

I know all kinds of people who've done the Markleyville Death Ride. I'll be darned. Maybe there's two Marlkeyville rides. I kind of doubt it.


Actually, it's nothing compared to the Cape Epic in South Africa. 900 km over 8 days, with 52,493 ft of climbing. And you have to pay just to be on the waiting list. It's hugely popular.

[jeffreyi]

6. I ride a 53cm Atlantis, and it's my first/only choice for

all of the above, but then again I'm not very fast. This bicycle just happens to fit my physique perfectly. I have a 700c Trek 1200 that I once thought was a comfy bike, and it is, but it's a dog compared to the Atlantis. And I can actually ride the Atlantis faster, even though the tires are higher volume, lower pressure. Which sounds weird, but according to some, the higher volume tires actually have lower rolling resistance as they don't react to every little dinky bump in the road surface. They are definitely more cushy, and I'm now very impatient with the unnecessary beating that high pressure narrow tires inflict. As far as a custom Rivendell...even Grant will tell you that these are only microscopically better than the stock Rivendells (Atlantis, Rambouillet, etc) They are sure beautiful, though. If you have time, it might behoove you to make the trip to Rivendell and get the tour and ride a couple models...

[Fovea]

7. An aquaintence of mine has one with S&S couplers

and it is her baby.
She has a couple other bikes, but that one is the favorite.

[wtmusic]

8. Hmm

I ride a production Trek and am member of a 500-strong bike club where members ride anything and everything. I see people riding $3000 frames who couldn't do 60mi if their life depended on it, and a lot of people on $1250 (complete) bikes who ride 150mi/wk.

What it comes down to is this: you are going to see very little benefit in the "specifics of fit" from a $2,500 frame. Not that fit isn't important--but take your correctly-sized $1,000 road bike and get a good fit on it by someone who knows what they're doing, maybe swapping out the stem and bars, etc, and suddenly you've got a bike which fits just as well or better than a Rivendell, for a third of the price.

My Trek frame weighs less than any frame Rivendell makes, and when I'm climbing 3,000 vertical feet in a day I really couldn't care less what the lugs look like.