Rivendell customer service is very good

I got a Riv for Christmas, not the custom, a production Rambo,
complete bike. (some do not like that name, but as soon as
I read it I know it was right for me, after all, my other bike is a
hollowpoint)
My MTB is just too clumsy and too heavy on pavement
when I can't get to the trails.
I would go to my LBS (Frenchie's) and drool over all the road candy
but I had no clue, I never owned a road bike, been riding less than a
year.
(well, not since I got my driver's license anyhow and that is decades)
I'm not going to buy a basic bike and figure it out, I wanted something
I could enjoy for at least five years without feeling held back as my
skill improved. I figured on paying $2-3,000 based on what I saw at the
LBS.


I had it out only once on a rare mild day and I rode for nearly three hours.
I haven't gotten the seat and bars just right yet, but it is comfortable,
handles very nicely, and gracefully forgave me when I ignored the potholes.

JP



"Zoot Katz" wrote in message
...
Sun, 06 Mar 2005 00:27:28 -0600,
, kituyjkm fchg wrote:

These days I ride a Cannondale mass market aluminum frame bike with
welds so smooth it looks like the frame was molded. Now THAT'S art!
It has a beautiful pearlescent blue/purple paint job (factory issue)
the likes of which I have never seen on another bike

I like the paint on the cookie-cutte Kleins that look different coming
and going.
--
zk

kituyjkm wrote:
I used to ride a Raleigh 10 speed when I was in high school, until it
was stolen. Lugged frame, down-tube shifters, the whole nine
yards... I didn't think it was anything special and still don't. I
really hated the down-tube shifters.

I don't like downtube shifters either. But the Raleigh probably had
advantages that your Cannondale doesn't, assuming it's a road frame.
More on this below.

These days I ride a Cannondale mass market aluminum frame bike with
welds so smooth it looks like the frame was molded. Now THAT'S art!
It has a beautiful pearlescent blue/purple paint job (factory issue)
the likes of which I have never seen on another bike.

Is a well-filleted TIG weld better "art" than a well-brazed and
detailed lug joint? Personal preference, I'd say.

6 months after you get the $4k Rivendell, the paint will be scratched
and chipped (as is the paint on my Cannondale, and every other bike
that actually gets ridden). Parts that wear will wear out and
require
replacement.

Here I'll disagree. I just worked on a friend's bike, a mid-1980s
Trek. Her 20 year old bike had perhaps one paint nick in it, and it's
ridden almost daily, including many long tours. I don't know how she
does it, but she keeps that bike looking really nice, so it's possible.

I hear a lot of this crap about leaving bikes to your kids as a way
to
justify the ridiculous price. The Rivendell marketing guys came up
with a great line there! Why not ride an equivalent performing bike
and leave your kid the $3k difference instead- they may not want your
old, beat-up $4k bike- they may have other interests... I'll bet they
can find a use for the $3k.

You get to do what you want with your money - at least, after taxes -
so that part's up to you. But there's more to a Rivendell than just
heirloom value.

I don't own a Riv. In fact, my "good" bike is a Cannondale touring
bike. But Rivendell does correct some egregious mistakes made by most
bike manufacturers. (Most of these mistakes are _not_ in my touring
bike, BTW.)

Most high-zoot road bike makers assume you'll never want tires wider
than 28 mm, or maybe even 25. They assume you'll absolutely never put
fenders on the bike. They'll assume you don't want to carry any more
than 2 pounds of luggage. They'll assume you want every last bit of
aerodynamic efficiency, even if it means your nose is scraping the
front tire as you ride. They assume you think every spoke you remove
from a wheel makes the bike much faster. They assume you want gears
the same as those used by your Tour de France hero, even if you order a
triple crank. They assume you want an unrepairable bucket of ratchet
parts involved in every gear shift you make. They assume you want the
fork to visually blend into the head tube, even if it means you may
never be able to replace your headset.

But they'll assume you'll never want to replace the headset, because by
then you'll want their NEW zero-clearance, stretched-out, no-fender,
high-gear, unrepairable delicate-tire plaything. And they figure this
is going to continue, at LEAST until they get the total number of gears
to exceed the total number of spokes.

Rivendell's philosophy is different. You may disagree, but they sell
to people who think they're more likely to need mountain-climbing gears
than motor-pacing gears. People who may actually ride in the rain, and
so want fenders. People who think it's important to be comfortable.
People who realize 150 psi tires aren't much better than steel tires.
People who carry luggage... and so on. Admittedly, they also target
people with money who appreciate bicycle art. But that's their choice.

Again, you get to spend your money where you like. Likewise, companies
target the market they like. But personally, I think the design of a
Rivendell makes much more sense for a real-world rider than the design
of the typical pretend-racer road bike.

Ryan Cousineau wrote:

I've considered Rivendell, but I'd really like to see what they could do
if they committed themselves to building something out of carbon fibre
in compact geometry, you know, sort of an elite touring version of a
Giant TCR Zero....

I like the Rivendell Downhill bike:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/nanodrive/rivendell-sauron.jpg.

--
Tom Sherman - Earth

"kituyjkm" fchg wrote in message
news
My $500 Cannondale hybrid can take racks, fenders, etc. etc. I have
fenders and a rack on the rear (actually a $2 plastic basket tie
wrapped to a blackburn rack) that hauls my 20 lbs of text and
notebooks to school almost daily. I have ebeen riding this bike for
about 10 years now.

Are you planning to tour on your Cannondale hybrid? I plan to tour on the
Riv.

When you TRY to spend $4k on a bike you get a racing machine with all
the deficiencies you listed. So if someone is TRYING to spend $4k on
a bike and sees all the racers and thinks, "Gee, that ain't for me",
they start looking at Rivendells. If the goal is to spend $4k on a
bike, then get the Rivendell. If the goal is to get a bike that is
daily useable in the real world and accomodates larger tires, racks,
fenders, lights, water bottles, etc., then there is no need to spend
$4k. All the big bike makers make hybrid type machines in $500-600
range.

I don't want a hybrid. I want a classic road bike with touring capability
and a drop bar. Why are you trying to compare the two? A touring bike and a
hybrid are not the same.


As far as lugged frames go, the lugs are made by some bike frame parts
maker. The tubing is brazed in (essentially high temp soldering).
There isn't much art to brazing. I have done it and it is pretty
easy. The lugs on the frame suck the solder into the joint. It's a
whole lot harder to make a welded joint look pretty that a lugged
joint. The beauty of a lugged frame is the nice curly-Qs that they
put in to make it look fancy. Rivendell doesn't do that, the frame
parts maker does that.

Sigh... You are entitled to your opinion. If nobody buys the lugs to build
up frames, then the lug maker will go out of business, and there will be no
more lugged frames. Builders tend to put their own touch on the lugs,
anyway, filing them to suit their own aesthetic tastes. Take a look at the
Waterford website to see what custom filed lugs look like. It's an art form,
not that a smooth Cannondale-esque TIG weld isn't, but lugs just look better
to my eyes. It's not about spending 4 grand. It's about buying something I
find pleasing to the eye, and something I want. Thank you for your input,
though.

These days I ride a Cannondale mass market aluminum frame bike with
welds so smooth it looks like the frame was molded. Now THAT'S art!

No, that's a worker spending time with a powersander to smooth them.

You'll never know how good (or not so good) those Cannondale welds are since
they are sanded and then covered with paint.

Now the welds on a Merlin, and some other makes of ti - they may not be art,
but they are examples of outstanding craftsmenship.


Chris Neary


"Prize the doubt, low kinds exist without"
- Inscription at Ramsmeyer Hall, Ohio State University

Zoot Katz wrote:

I like the paint on the cookie-cutte Kleins that look different coming
and going.

That's what I have -- blurple.

Matt O.

Chris Neary wrote:

These days I ride a Cannondale mass market aluminum frame bike with
welds so smooth it looks like the frame was molded. Now THAT'S art!

No, that's a worker spending time with a powersander to smooth them.

You'll never know how good (or not so good) those Cannondale welds
are since they are sanded and then covered with paint.

Now the welds on a Merlin, and some other makes of ti - they may not
be art, but they are examples of outstanding craftsmenship.

AFAIK, classic Klein welds are not filed or sanded. They're double-pass, which
re-flows the metal, giving that smooth look. I think Merlin and some others do
the same thing.

Matt O.

AFAIK, classic Klein welds are not filed or sanded. They're double-pass, which
re-flows the metal, giving that smooth look. I think Merlin and some others do
the same thing.

Klein is rather cagey about this in their public information, but creating a
completely ripple-free weld is damn near impossible (based on my 25 years
experience as a welding engineer). My hat is off to them if Klein is doing
this on a routine basis.

A possible clue exists in Klein's 2002 Japan product brochure on page 18.
"These welds receive only a light cosmetic dressing, no grinding or putty".
http://www.kleinjapan.com/tech_guide...ech_manual.pdf

Is "light cosmetic dressing" a sanding process, or what?

Merlin has always prided themselves on their weld quality, and the
consistent, well formed beads are true examples of craftsmanship. Take a
look at the bottom bracket detail image for the Magia on the Merlinbikes web
page for a good example.

Cannondale used to be pretty open about how they dressed their welds (IIRC,
an old Cannondale ad featured a member of the sanding crew). There's nothing
wrong with it, so long as you have skilled workers so you don't nick or
excessively thin the adjoining tubes.


Chris Neary


"Science, freedom, beauty, adventu what more could
you ask of life? Bicycling combined all the elements I
loved" - Adapted from a quotation by Charles Lindbergh

kituyjkm wrote:
My $500 Cannondale hybrid can take racks, fenders, etc. etc. I have
fenders and a rack on the rear (actually a $2 plastic basket tie
wrapped to a blackburn rack) that hauls my 20 lbs of text and
notebooks to school almost daily. I have ebeen riding this bike for
about 10 years now.

Well, a hybrid is fine for lots of uses. It depends what you want the
bike for. Personally, I wouldn't want to ride a hybrid very far,
though.

When you TRY to spend $4k on a bike you get a racing machine with all
the deficiencies you listed. So if someone is TRYING to spend $4k on
a bike and sees all the racers and thinks, "Gee, that ain't for me",
they start looking at Rivendells. If the goal is to spend $4k on a
bike, then get the Rivendell. If the goal is to get a bike that is
daily useable in the real world and accomodates larger tires, racks,
fenders, lights, water bottles, etc., then there is no need to spend
$4k. All the big bike makers make hybrid type machines in $500-600
range.

Oh, nobody's saying there's a _need_ to spend $4000! Seriously, I'm
still happy with my Cannondale tourer after 19 years, and it cost _way_
less than $4000. (But I would not be happy with a hybrid - my personal
choice.)

You need to understand, Rivendell isn't shooting for everybody. They
are shooting for the high end of the retrogrouch market - people who
appreciate the Rivendell combination of art, practicality and
tradition, and who can afford to buy what they want. It's vaguely
similar to what some car companies have done, coming out with limited
production specialty models, appealing to mid-life crisis guys. (Of
course, I approve of the Rivendell offering much more than, say, the
Dodge Viper version.)

As far as lugged frames go, the lugs are made by some bike frame
parts
maker. The tubing is brazed in (essentially high temp soldering).
There isn't much art to brazing. I have done it and it is pretty
easy. The lugs on the frame suck the solder into the joint. It's a
whole lot harder to make a welded joint look pretty that a lugged
joint. The beauty of a lugged frame is the nice curly-Qs that they
put in to make it look fancy. Rivendell doesn't do that, the frame
parts maker does that.

Hmmm. You may need read some issues of the Rivendell Reader. Their
lugs are not things they buy off the shelf, as you seem to imply; they
are investment cast to their design and specifications, and Grant
Peterson makes it clear that it's a give-and-take design process
requiring considerable time and expense.

Likewise, while I'm a lousy brazer, I have a friend who became expert
in it (winning at least one Concours d'Elegance with a frame he built,
giving seminars at national events, etc). Between my experience and
his explanations, I'd say it's not necessarily a piece of cake.

I'll agree, it's harder to make a welded joint look as pretty as a
welded joint can look - if you follow me. Personally, though, I think
_no_ welded joint looks as pretty as a tastefully designed and executed
lugged joint.

Again, there's lots of room for personal taste. That's why there's not
just one bike company out there. But just because you don't want a
Rivendell, doesn't mean others can't make a perfectly rational case for
buying one.

wrote:


Rivendell's philosophy is different. You may disagree, but they sell
to people who think they're more likely to need mountain-climbing
gears
than motor-pacing gears. People who may actually ride in the rain,
and
so want fenders. People who think it's important to be comfortable.
People who realize 150 psi tires aren't much better than steel tires.
People who carry luggage... and so on. Admittedly, they also target
people with money who appreciate bicycle art. But that's their
choice.

Again, you get to spend your money where you like. Likewise,
companies
target the market they like. But personally, I think the design of a
Rivendell makes much more sense for a real-world rider than the
design
of the typical pretend-racer road bike.

First, I have nothing against a Rivendell bike, if that's what someone
wants. I disagree that it's anything someone actually needs, though.
It's not like Rivendell makes the only sensible alternative to typical
"racing" bikes or clunky hybrids. There are very nice practical bikes
available, like a Fuji touring, with all the features you praise in the
Rivendells, all for around $700. A bike like this will be pretty
indistinguisable from a Rivendell except for aesthetics.