Trakhak

That he was able to persuade so many C&V types to splash out for a Rivendell, given that they are such notorious tightwads (I include myself in that category), is the ultimate tribute to Grant Petersen's gift of the gab.

Trakhak

Or do what I do---look on CL for '90's aluminum hybrids, the most unloved category of all.

My bike that now gets the most mileage is a (speaking of unloved) Grip Shift-equipped Cannondale H300 (with a "CAD 1" frame---plain-gauge aluminum), bought through CL a few years ago.

Added my must-have aero bars, fenders, a front rack, and panniers. At least 12,000 retirement miles on that bike alone this year.

Maelochs

^ I hope it is the single-top-tube model (2000 and on I guess.) the late 90s version with the added sloping top tube is a little ... awkward, to my eye.

However, each to his own.

PeteHski

Especially as they often claim to be immune to marketing.

Trakhak

What marketing? Buying warehouse blowout friction shifters (which Grant once boasted of scooping up in bulk for pennies on the dollar) is just good sense.

(Full disclosure: I happily used friction downtube shifters from 1963 to around 1993. Why so slow to change to indexing? The friction shifters worked fine, and I was a tightwad.)

phughes

When the indexing broke on the bar end shifters on my touring bike, I ran them as friction. I found I liked it better on that bike, so I bought the Silver friction shifters that Rivendell sold. I love them, and may actually move them to the down tube at some point.

DangerousDanR

The following statements are the opinion of Dangerous Dan and do not reflect the position of Bike Forums or reality in any way shape or form!

1) Quill stems are horrible. I mean, other than rusting solid to the fork they are installed in and ... Yeah, just plain inferior in every way possible.
2) Rim brakes are adequate and totally inferior to disk brakes for stopping.
3) Grant P. is a snake oil salesman who caters to the nostalgic folks who have never had an older steel bike speed wobble on them and if they did, they would know for sure that "Crabon" would speed wobble worse by far because "steel is real: (does that mean carbon is imaginary? Can I apply an FFT to my Time's imaginary portion ???)
4) There will always be a place for people who sell nostalgia so Rivendell will be around to sell crap to nostalgic people.
5) The Rivendell web site advertises "splitting hatchets." I have split hundreds of cords of firewood and I always used a maul, a sledge, and a couple of wedges. Hatchets are as useless as something called a Homer.
6) You are welcome!

t2p

yeah those frames with the added top tube were fugly - of course that would not have stopped me if I would have found one in my size

tomato coupe

The only thing stranger than selling hatchets, is the way they're pitching them:

Trakhak

Never heard of the internals of an indexed bar end shifter breaking. (I assume that, although you wrote "shifters," you meant only the right shifter, since the left would have been friction.) What happened?

squirtdad

1) threadless stems are a) fugly b) have limited adjustments meaning if you have to change or get it wrong you need to buy a new fork c) are really fugly (with very few exceptions like the nitto)
2) a good dual pivot brake with good pads provides really good braking and are a whole lot less hassle. also require a heaver fork, meaning your ride may not be optimal
3) where are you getting a wobble? and caused by steel bike? does not compute for me. Grant has long history in bikes....he likes what he likes and is happy to share his likes. I certainly don't agree with all of his points
4) not selling nostolgia..... selling practical bikes that will get used and last. If he was selling nostalgia there would be no sloping top tubes or other funky design choices
5) truth. over the year I only split kindling with a hatchet (still have my boy scout hatchet...from....lot's of years ago)
6) you are welcome. send Dot's pretzels

DangerousDanR

1) Threadless forks are superior in every way that matters. Looks are subjective. I don't cut the steering tube until I an happy with the adjustment.

2) I have Campagnolo Record and SR on two bikes and Shimano Dura Ace brakes on my other rim brake bike. All are double pivot in front. The Campagnolo even use roller bearings in the pivots. They are as good as rim brakes can get. They are acceptable in the dry. Two of the three are on carbon forks. One is 531. The fork on my Time is no heavier than the rim brake forks. It also rides better.

3) My Peugeot is a CFX-10 which was the frame set they used for their race team in the early 1980s (bought in 1982) is too light weight for my taste. Pedaling hard once you get above 30 MPH it starts to wobble. Headset is Stronglight with needle bearings. It is as good as a headset can get. But the frame is too flexible. By the way, the nicest riding of my bikes is the Time. By the way, that Peugeot bike has at least 60,000 miles on it. It is an old friend, but just like the old cars I have owned it is not as good as newer cars.

4) The Roadeo FRAME is $2800. That is very close to what I paid for my Time. A Homer is $1750 for the frame. That is more than for a Ritchey Outback frame. Nope. Not impressed.

5) I guess we agree. But I see the hatchet as an example of the weirdness of GP, not an exception.

6) Ride what you like. I have my eyes on a Time ADHX 45 to replace one of my Lynskeys as my winter commuter next year.

My real point is that engineering marches on. I built a machine around 20 years ago that is used in a research hospital to scan blood samples. It is still in use. If I were doing it today it would be faster and cheaper and more accurate. Trying to freeze designs at a point in time doesn't work.

Rivendell bicycles are like Tolkien's mythical place where the immortal ones live. A wonderful fiction, but not rooted in reality.

PeteHski

This is the simple truth that some people simply refuse to accept. I would have far more respect for Rivendell if they didn’t pretend that their bikes are superior to modern designs. But I guess they know what their audience wants to hear.

Garthr

Hey, how many of you armchair critics and Nostradamus's actually own and run your own successful bike biz ? Have a clue what it's like, all the decisions to be made ? Please link to your website and tell us why you sell what you sell in detail, so the forum can tear apart all your decisions and predict when it will fail.

I'll wait with great anticipation..... teeheeeheee.

And I'll also ask if any of the critics have actually owned, ridden or even seen a Rivendell frame in person ? Do you have any actual experience from which to draw ? Or is this critiquing all theoretical ?

I own a Rivendell frame, a Bombadil which I bought used. I bought it because the dimensions of the frame were perfect for me, as I rarely find stock frames of any kind with long enough front of centers. I had it repainted without decals or head badge. This fall I bought a Velo Orange frame, for the same reasons, it fit my needs, totally practical. The brand names and paint jobs are superfluous, they can be changed, the frame not so easily. Do people buy a Riv for the brand name and image ? Of course, people buy things for brand names all the time for every product sold. How many are reading this on their Iphones ? I hate Apple products, overpriced junk. I've only owned one, and it broke soon after the warranty ran out. Un-repairable they said. Well eff that. Sound familiar ? That Apple name really made a difference in it lasting didn't it ? Ahahahahaha ! Myself I don't care about the name as if it's going to add something that isn't there, it's the quality of it that matters, the usability, practicability. My Bombadil was made by Waterford with Rivendell lugs and spec'd tubing. Some people go googoo over that name. Yeah so what, do their frames suit my purpose or not ? I'd buy a carbon fiber full on Trek road racing bike if it fit into my sensibilities, but it doesn't, so I don't. Would that $13,000 buy me anything above and beyond ? Hah hah. Where's the critiquing of all of that stuff, the imagery used in the adverts so the buyer can live the Trek image. It's hardly unique to Rivendell, it is a business after all, selling their goods. Of course they are going pat themselves on the back.

Maelochs

Threadless sterering systems are every bit as adjustable as quill stems .... just add spacers. leave a little space above the top of the stem, for when you get old. And threadless Stems can be had (decent ones) for $20 or $30, and finding different lengths and angles is absurdly easy. Not so with quill stems.

And, as @DangerousDanR mentioned, appearance is objective but attractiveness is subjective
What a bunch of recycled BS.

With what people know of CF layup, they can design a huge range of properties into any piece. Also, except for people I do not trust, no one has ever said "My disc-brake bike rides really harshly because the fork is too rigid." Ride quality depends on so many factors, (including slightly wider, softer tires (allowed by disc forks to some degree)) that the old saw about disc forks be too rigid because they have to withstand braking forces is just ludicrous.
The idea of a "practical" bike costing three times as much as an actual "practical" bike puts the lie to that notion. A real Practical bike has to do the job for minimal investment---otherwise you are buying art or bragging rights (or both.) "Practical" suggests "utilitarian" and frilly investment-cast lugs and art-house paint---and a huge price tag for a bike equipped with off-brand running gear---is in no way "utilitarian." Utilitarian is any of the very practical and versatile hybrids available from almost every manufacturer at far lower prices than most road bikes.

It isn't quite "Nostalgia" (though the promo is indeed a return to the halcyon days of youth where everybody rode bikes without a thought) but nostalgia mixed with Luddite retro-grouchiness mixed with a philosophy which makes the buy feel like a wild, free individualist braving life in the harshest environment, with his trusty Rivendell by his side, skinning animals with a hatchet (sorry, but a good sweep of blade is is generally considered superior for efficient skinning---though yes, small kindling can be split by a hatchet. Anything much more than a few inches and, well, there is a reason why a "splitting maul" is a thing.)

As far as lasting ... hey folks. Bikes last. Ask my mid-'80s bikes which are every bit as good today (better in fact) than way back when. Bikes are made of things like metal and carbon fiber which have lifetimes as long or longer than most of us have left to live.

Funny thing is, back when we were kids, we did crazy stuff which would trash a Rivendell. Jumping off a moving bike and letting it crash, jumping off anything one could use as a launch pad, leaving bikes on the ground (whichever side down) and leaving them out in any weather, not even knowing what maintenance was, not caring about crashing or knocking over a bike ... a bike was just a thing, a thing one used along with everything else, in the important business of being a kid and having fun ..... .... Treat a Rivendell the way we treated bikes when we were kids and explain to other Rivendell owners why it is beat to crap, bent, dinged, scratched and scraped, why you are on your third set of forks, and why ultimately the frame cracked.

Rivendell is selling Ideas about cycling, Dreams about cycling ... but not the actual dreamy ideal bike in its stories. Rivendell is selling a possibly attractive (see above about appearance---I hate those pointless double top tubes) and inarguably expensive retrobike which actually doesn't do anything better than a $1000 hybrid from any bike store. You buy a Rivendell because it is a Rivendell ... not because of how it compares with other bikes, but to contrast with other bikes. You are laying out several thousand dollars to make a statement---maybe only to yourself (almost everyone else in the world wouldn't know or care) but still ...

All that said, nothing against the bike or the company. It is what it is, and it says what it is and we can all see that. If for some riders a Rivendell is a sort of Grail bike ... buy one. I have a friend who bought the Olds 442 he had wanted since high school, modded it a little, and drove it around for a decade (and sold it). He wasn't trying to recapture lost youth (he isn't that old) or relive or remake the past ... he had just wanted that car since high school. He got it, built it, drove it as a toy for a few years ... so buy a Rivendell.

Cycling is a solitary sport, even when done with others. You buy the bike, you ride the bike. If having a particular bike improves your experience, go get it. And who cares what others say? (Well, we all do, but to different degrees and we respond in different fashions to each.) But go get the bike you want if you can.

But ... twisting facts to justify what one wants is not particularly healthy. If you like a thing, that is enough. Inventing fake reasons or elevating your values above everyone else's .... of course people are going to call you out for that.

It's funny though .... modern unified bar/stem units and aero stems sort of look like a modernized outgrowth of quills, in my eyes. Smooth transitions, flowing shapes .... and every bit as impractical when one wants to make adjustments. Go figure.

PeteHski

An Aethos carbon disk fork weighs only around 285g (300g with uncut steerer tube). So fork weight is hardly a real issue on a modern disc bike.

Jeff Neese

Sure they are. There are a lot of people who that's all they do - just ride around. And if they can afford it, there's a lot to like about buying one bicycle that you'll be just riding around for the rest of your life. I'd be willing to bet that close to 100% of all Rivendells ever sold are still on the road, and a large percentage of those owners would describe their riding as "just riding around".

Kapusta

If I never own another bike with threaded headset again, it will be too soon.

Good riddance!

ofajen

Thinking about it, Rivbike gets credit for me using touring bars on my old MTB (albeit the cheap Sunlite steel version), and both my bikes have the same VP flat pedals used on the Clem Smith.

I’m perhaps more retrogrouch than GP, as all his current frames have vertical dropouts. If I were to buy a new frame, I’d probably get a Bassi Le Montreal, which is way cheaper and has the traditional semi-horizontal dropout that can run single-speed as well as a gear cluster.

Otto

phughes

Really? It happens all the time. The indexing function broke. Thankfully you can simply use friction mode when that happens. Since I liked it in friction mode, I replaced them with something nicer. And yes, the right.

indyfabz

Yeah. I had one “wear out” from years of touring and commuting. The former exposed the bike to some really bad weather conditions both on the road and in camp.