Originally Posted by
Ghazmh
That looks nice! What’s the backstory? I have a pair of those tires in my supply drawer for my gravel bike.
It's a Rivendell Appaloosa that was offered as a complete, somewhat eccentric, build as a "Web Special". How eccentric? V brakes, Billie bars, a 1 x 10 drivetrain, and René Herse Fleecer Ridge tires that are, no doubt, wonderful, but that are too wide for the bike to accommodate fenders with them (the Appaloosa's tire width limit for fenders is 50mm, these are more like 53mm). The Appaloosa itself is a bit eccentric, with a very long wheelbase, and a tendency (which some have resisted) to conduce to builds that encourage an upright riding posture. I jumped on it, in part because I'm a touring bike junkie, in part because I would never have built up a bike with those particular features myself. The 1x10 drivetrain, for example, never would have done that. The bars... not what most of my bikes look like. And V brakes are anathema. So I figured I'd learn something.
Amusingly enough, I probably wouldn't have ordered this bike if I had gotten onto Battle Road Bikes' trail three weeks earlier than I did. Those guys are going to keep me in bicycle novelty for the foreseeable future, getting through the project backlog. But I'm glad I bit on the Appaloosa, I'm going to ride it in its eccentric dress for awhile, and have fun with that. If I get the urge to reconfigure it for conventional touring bike duties, I can go down that path easily enough.
One thing about the Fleecer Ridge tires: they are the 700c counterpart to the Humptulips Ridge Extralights currently mounted on the GT Karakoram, except... they're the Endurance variant, another thing that I wouldn't necessarily have done on my own.
rod