JulesCW 

Given that Riv is a micro-niche company that does what Grant wants to do regardless of how commercially viable it is I do not understand why folks who don't like his ideas get so upset. For those folks there is the other 99%+ of the market -- it is not as though their preferred designs somehow become unavailable instantly just because Riv sells a thousand bikes.

Of the examples you give -- the Rodriguez is pretty neat -- and with those specs cost a lot more than a standard Riv Hillibike (and Rodriguez also promotes ideas way out of the mainstream -- think about the Big Squeeze Brakes). As for refurbing old MTBs to an approximation of a new Riv HilliBike for many $$ less -- Riv themselves have posted/written about how to do that, posted pictures of customers who have done just that, etc. -- that's a perfectly reasonable way to go if you have the desire, the knowledge, the patience, and the expertise needed to do so -- but many people do not. The vintage road scene is full of similar examples -- my pristine Bruce Gordon bike bought for under $1k is functionally 95% + of a new $6k + wonder steel retro bike from Bianchi or a small builder bike, but is not only lots cheaper, but at least 4x better looking IMHO. But it took lots of looking, effort to clean it up, etc., and it is not for everyone -- so I don't have any problem with folks who buy new fancy road bikes -- retro or modern -- it does not impact me at all (except for the reality that many of them feel compelled to tell ME I should be riding what they are...). Just Ride!

Kobe 

I would love to buy one of these, but they stopped one size( a 63cm) short of making one that would fit me. Rivendell has been great at making frames sized to fit people outside of the bell curve. Plus the lugs on the old Riv's were so sweet.

I'll make due with my 64cm Hilsen until they come full circle.

squirtdad

it seems that anyone who actually has a rivendell likes them

cudak888 

It's a bicycle. It's hard to make a bad one.

-Kurt

homelessjoe

Has anybody looked at new mountain bikes now? I dont think anyone makes one without front shocks..... all the high end mountain bikes are full suspension aluminum or carbon.....hydraulic disc brakes....super short wheelbase......27.5 tubeless.......with very aggressive racing postures.......thats what a mountain bike is now........Rivendell couldnt call that bike a mountain bike by todays standards...............Grant Peterson makes bikes he likes .....obviously he is not interested in what is trendy or what any one else makes.....I dont think .he is trying to fill a niche market either.......he is just designing and building bikes he thinks are great designs.....Giovanni Pinarello is a great cycle designer and knows more about bike design that 98.9 percent of us ....no one would think of questioning that..........if you dont think Peterson knows what he is doing take a XO1 or an RB1 or a MBzip for a ride...then check out the details.......The XO1 had a huge effect on the industry..........If you look at all the new high end carbon fiber racing bike you will notice that most have clearance for 30mm tires now !!! a couple have fender clearance and I found one with a quill stem !!!......Thats Grant chipping away at their brains with his little axe

homelessjoe

all the early mountain bikes had that frame geometry with long chain stays up until about 87 88.....the Raleigh mountain tour series even had 650b wheels......nothing is new

mstateglfr 

classic example of taking two things that were decades apart and finding a narrative to connect them.

homelessjoe

of course I was joking....but I was going for conspiracy theory humor with him and his axe....I certainly dont really think he has any influence on Canyon or Pinarello ..... they are selling way more bikes at three times the price......they are the leaders.....sarcasm

HTupolev

You found a new high-end carbon fiber racing bike with a quill stem?

homelessjoe

Canyons new Aeroad CFR Di 2 has a quill stem

Het Volk

Interesting handlebar system, but unlike traditional quill stems, it is proprietary. However, ability to not have to cut a steerer tube is a much added design that I hope other's will integrate into their systems.

Het Volk

As for Hillibikes, he is not going for the Dew Code Red drinking set. If you look at where they ride, they ride in the foothills of Northern California, where there is ample open, single track that does not involve a lot of technical sections. I look at them, and try to envision when I would ride/use a bike like that.

It seems to me that this would best be a great commuter bike (step through actually great when loaded), that you could basically take anywhere. I am still wedded to drop bars for a variety of reasons, and I guess I need to try riding more upright with sweep back bars to maybe "get" the experience. Bike Snob seems to have been convinced. I wonder if perhaps there is a bit of a thrill of riding down a hill more upright? I think drop bars and an aggressive position make you feel more connected to the bike's movements, and wonder if riding more upright, gives you a little more as if you are riding where there bike takes you, and not you taking the bike.

acm

I think it just has do with the fact that Grant is very uh... direct in his marketing that gets people's undies in a bunch over Rivendell. I think his basic thesis (the influence of racing on the market has made bikes less safe, less fun, less practical, and uglier for the sake of features 90% of consumers don't really benefit from) is correct but it's evident how that might seem like an attack on other people's preferences and lifestyles.

As far as not "getting" the hillibike thing, all I can say is have spoken to two folks personally who own them (the Gus and the Clem) and seem over the moon about them.

bark_eater 

There's a lot of of nostalgic potential tapping into the memories of 70 year-old's, who as little kids rode full sized beach cruisers down the biggest hill they could find. I bet Grants bikes "feel fast" at 20 mph on dirt.

Germany_chris

The “un-racer”

The reality is he’s not wrong, I love looking at race bikes old and new but I wouldn’t ride one to the store and I wouldn’t ride one with my family so what’s the point. Grant wants people utility cycling and he makes his version or a utility bike you (royal) don’t have to buy it or him but stabile, standardized, and practical are not bad things.

big chainring 

I'm bracing for GP to get on the ebike bandwagen and offer an electric tricycle to his aging fan base.

hsuBM

people change their minds all of the time, but I don’t think Grant’s market share is large enough for neglecting that segment to matter one bit. And that segment- I doubt there’s more than ten buyers worldwide who both 1) know what lugs are and 2) actually want lugs on their plug-in moped.

tyrion

Those extra top tubes on some Rivendells are good place to put batteries.

bikingshearer 

This is a Grant Petersen thread, so in the interests of doing my bit to get it up to the requisite 10+ pages . . . . .

Yes, GP and Rivendell want people to buy their bikes. It would be the height of business-dumb for them not to. But I think many people miss out on GP's ultimate message which is something on the order of: Ride a bike; ride a bike you like; ride a bike that is a good fit for the kind of riding you like to do; and, probably most important, think about and be guided by what it is you like and why you like it, as opposed to blindly going along with what the kool kids are riding just because the kool kids are doing it.

Rivendell is pretty clear about who they think is their target customer, and they build a quality product and sell other quality products with the idea of appealing to that customer. If what they're selling doesn't float your boat, that's fine. But if it does, they want your business. Sounds pretty routine to me.

Quick aside: Once, when speaking with GP directly (I live close enough to actually go to their brick-and-mortar location), I told him that in the on-line talk about him there is a "GP is an idiot" camp and a "GP is a genius" camp. He replied that he was pretty sure he was neither.

IsleRide

Pretty much sums up this topic.

g-funk

check out the Salsa Rustler Bar. I currently have one on my 180* opposite of a Rivendell hillibike.

squirtdad

FWIW Sheldon brown was considering an electric bike toward his end time, in order to keep riding.

Germany_chris

Side note

Raging against e-bikes isn’t going to do anything they’re here to stay whether they’re pedelec or throttle. Just about everyone and their grandma has one over here everything Reise and Muller that cast what a good used car costs to cheap ones you can pick up at decathlon/Media Markt/Rewe.

Mogens

I don’t own a Rivendell and two years ago, when I finally got around to spending four figures on a new bike, I chose a modern aluminum one. So while appreciating Grant Petersen, I’m not a follower of his. But I want to push back on some things. In these threads, his bikes are often dismissed as too expensive. Compared to what exactly? Niche? Compared to what? Decent bikes across the board are expensive. When I got back into cycling a couple of years ago, I was surprised to find so many $2000-8000 bikes at local bike shops. It feels to me that because GP’s bikes resemble, in some respects, bikes you might find at a garage sale that people apply a different set of expectations. Which segues to the next point: nostalgia. Sure, lugs. As far as I can tell, one of GP’s biggest aesthetic influences is British bike manufacturing of the 60s and 70s, Mercian, Carlton, Raleigh, etc. But his actual bikes are quite different than anything that has existed prior. And the stylistic references basically end with the lugs, materials, and panels. The decals and other graphic design elements are completely idiosyncratic, he certainly isn’t creating reproductions. That would be somewhat purposeless since you can still buy frames from some of these British manufacturers, or find them on the used market. He’s applied that style to frames in the 80s mountain bike lineage, somewhat Francophile mixtes, ‘classic road bikes’ that have been hybridized with hybrids, and more. But he’s adapted these original forms. He lengthened chainstays, widened tire clearances, sloped top tubes, and number of other things that have responded to how people want to ride now as opposed to forty years ago. Some of things he’s done either anticipated or influenced the development of modern gravel bikes. Oh, and his objection to eBikes is purely linguistic. Personally, I don’t have a problem calling electric bikes bikes, but then I also don’t object to calling oat milk milk, which is a minority position in the state of Wisconsin.

He’s consistently challenged the orthodoxy of the marketplace by taking a different approach. In my opinion I think a lot of people would be better served by that approach than the one pushed by the more mainstream bike culture and that’s really the most important issue that the existence of Grant Petersen raises.

acm

^^^^
This is exactly what I think when I see his designs dismissed as just nostalgic reproductions. GP's designs were idiosyncratic even in his Bstone days, and his modern designs are the logical extension of the work he was doing in the late 80s/early 90s. I'll agree with the poster(s) who said that of Riv's current offerings there seems to be a lot of redundancy, but there are even differences among those (the diffference between the Susie/Wolbis and Gus, for example, seems to be largely a heavier-duty tube set for more hardcore riding)