I've only commuted by bike in a sprawling city (Greensboro, NC) for the past 4 years and have put over 10,000 miles on my Sam in the two years I've had it. 90-95% of my riding is utilitarian commuting, usually carrying 10-20 lbs. in panniers, and i absolutely love the Sam as a commuter. I actually have a Quickbeam (first Riv) but can no longer justify owning it because the Sam just fits so perfectly and does everything really, really well.
If you're interested in new bags, I would highly recommend the Swift Industries Roll Top Pannier setup as well. They are waterproof (regular cordura version), CAPACIOUS (just one is almost always enough for me) and the backpack option is nice as well. I just got a brand new dyno hub to upgrade from my SON classic to the SON Wide Body, and it's a gorgeous, strong and light-enough wheel. I would highly recommend going Schmidt if you're going to commit to making the bike a viable car alternative, which it of course sounds like you are. I'm also planning on upgrading to the Edelux II from the original soon because brighter is better! http://imgur.com/rUTGg3u On Thursday, April 10, 2014 1:45:30 AM UTC-4, Benedikt wrote: > > I do everything with my Sam. Group rides, century rides, errands and > commuting to work everyday. The Seattle rain and road grit does eat through > drive trains but a lot less money then I'd spend on a car. > > On Wednesday, April 9, 2014 3:28:08 AM UTC-7, blakcloud wrote: >> >> This weeks experiment, well maybe the next two weeks, will be using my >> Sam Hillborne as a commuter. I built the bike up as a leisurely Sunday bike >> to ride with my wife though I started thinking the bike could do more. >> >> I was inspired by a thread last year "Could you own one bike?" The answer >> for me was no, but I could trim down the number of bikes I own. I want to >> minimize and plus I don't have room as I live in a condo and bike parking >> has become an issue. >> >> There hasn't been a lot of talk about using Riv's as commuters on this >> board and even Rivendell doesn't seem to push the commuting aspect for >> their bikes. The Sam to me, might make a good commuter. My commutes are 60 >> minutes each way, so nothing drastic. It is set up with Albatross's and a >> Brooks B67, plus the required basket and Mark's rack. The bike currently >> has Hetre's but I think I will use a pair of Marathons that I also own. I >> will pick up SKS Longboards today and if the experiment works, a new dynamo >> front wheel will be built. Ninety five percent of my cycling is commuting >> so I really need to like the bike I ride. I am hoping the Sam will fit that >> bill. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
