Got it yesterday, did a few miles shakedown/adjust-stuff ride today. To steal Velouria's blog name, what a lovely bike! It has the magical smooth-but-maneuverable Riv ride, and boy is that low toptube nice at when hopping on and off. After years of enjoying the low stepover of folding bikes, I find the high tube on "regular" bikes a mostly unnecessary obstacle, so this is wonderful (bonus: no bars crashing into tubes!).
Details: Those Boscos reach WAY back; I'll be lopping an inch off before the next ride. The SunRace shifters are reversed 9-speed click/friction, and only the right friction-only shifter has any kind of ratchet effect when pushing to lower/easier cogs. The original ratchety shifters on the first Clem run had a lot of clicks on both sides, both directions, and I found them hard to operate on the demo Clem H I ride last year. To help explain what's new: if you mounted these normally, they're the same as Shimano bar-ends with pure friction front, index or pure friction rear. As installed they both work great in friction mode. The gearing is perfect with 38-24 chainrings and pie plate 9-speed cassette. Grant's right, it's hard to imagine why you would need a big ring up front. Although the ride is similar - maybe a little more relaxed/cushy - to the Appaloosa I sold, the vibe is VERY different. With the sit-up riding position, mixte frame, and certainly with the green paint on this one, there's very much a "Raleigh 3-speed" thing going on which I get a kick out of. I rode in my standard costume of MUSA shorts, Pletscher T-shirt and Riv fake-leather gloves..all good..but this is the first time my swoopy Specialized helmet and Oakley M Frames felt completely ridiculous on a bicycle. I think I need a beret! I love the heart seatlug, which only works on mixte frames. It sits high, proud and pretty, and leaves the impression (in my mind) of someone creating a lug, then designing a bicycle around it. Here's some pics I took today and yep...I forgot to do a lug closeup. Doh! https://goo.gl/photos/P4TKso4xaSWNDA6Y9 -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
