As someone who's ridden a Sam for the past 3+ years and who's recently felt the uncontrollable urge to upgrade to a fatter-tired bike, I would say wait for the Clem. I have slowly crept up in tire size over the years, going from 28mm gatorskins back in the mid-2000's, to 33mm Supremes on my Quickbeam, to the 38mm Barlow Pass on my Hillborne now. I now think of 38's as "skinnies" and the lower limit of what I would ride. Unfortunately, this about where the Sam maxes out (in combination with the lack of supple road tires in the 43-45mm range that it could handle).
When I heard that the Clem will definitively be able to take a 60mm tire with fender, I was glad that Rivendell stepped it up to the next level of fat function. I am about to get a Jones Plus with 60mm Super Motos to start and I am quite sure that it will be significantly faster and funner than my Hillborne on all surfaces except smooth pavement, thanks to the 1.5X tires. I was about to say my love with Rivendell was coming to an end, due to the limitations of the Sam and the change in my preferences, but this is a cool jump to see. All that being said, I think the Sam is a great bike if you just want a reliable, pretty and fun road commuter/light tourer, but the bike is rather limited (for the cost) from my perspective. -- 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.
