Indeed to further the argument, I would suggest that what Grant is doing with the "cruiser" bikes (by which I mean the proportional chainstay bikes like the Cheviot, Clem, and Appaloosa) is very much trying to achieve the handling of those early road-ish bikes but for an upright fit and wider tires. I recently took my Clem on a 2 day credit card tour, a ride that I had previously done a couple of times on my then-upright barred Long Haul Trucker. The Clem was definitely an upgrade--it climbed super well, but where it really shined was the downhills. The stability and planted feeling afforded by the longer chainstay design really gave me confidence to take corners at high speed in a way that a traditional touring bike with upright bars had not. In fact, I thought of you, Patrick, and how you're always praising your Rivs as being stable but with a wonderful "turn-in," and I thought to myself, "This must be what he is talking about."
On Tuesday, July 25, 2017 at 2:42:43 PM UTC-7, Patrick Moore wrote: > > For the record, I wasn't being snide or trying to deprecate when I used > the word "cruisers" -- I think that the word fits; they're very nice and > fun to ride and sporty cruisers. And -- I'm 62 -- in 10 years, heck, I may > be saving pennies for a Clem or Joe or similar. > > As to Joe's hypothesis: I dunno. I was a late member of the original > bobgroup, and an early member of Rivendell, and I recall the print space > devoted to what basically was old school steel road bikes and all the cool > retro steel/friction/leather/canvas/wool roadie kit; only, more practical > than your 1995 Eddy Merckx. And IIRC, they -- Riv Roads, Long Lows, related > by marriage Herons -- sold a lot more than All Rounders. > > Aside: My first customized Road was built around the All Rounder idea -- I > asked Grant to make me a XO-1 that was more roady and was better than the > XO-1. (He said, "Oh, it'll be better!") So, 54 cm st c-c, 56.5 level tt > c-c, 73* parallel, toute Riv 753 except perhaps the fork may have been 531. > Tweaked geometry, road tubing, lugs, and fork. Now, with a level top tube, > I can very comfortably ride a 60 c-c. I told Grant, "I'll post this to the > boblist!!!" He said, "Don't you dare!" But the statute of limitations has > run out. > > A very nice bike, tho' I had to get a custom Salsa upjutter to make it > fit; but fit it did. The current '99 and '03, though, are light years and > quantum levels and levels of being better than that first 1995 custom, even > though that was a huge improvement, for road use, over the '92 XO-1 (I > think that the XO-1 was a good idea that hadn't yet come to fruition; > fruition was the Atlantis.) > > On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 1:50 PM, Chris Birkenmaier <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> I certainly get what you are saying Joe about the "cruisers" versus the >> "road" type of bikes. I just would add that my Joe Appaloosa is far >> livelier than what most people would put into a cruiser category. Really a >> fun ride and it gets up and going quite nicely for me. >> >> -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
