Sean, I'm biased because I had an XO and was happy with its versatility and ability to run tires up to 1.9" but the real test came when I agreed to join a group of three others to ride the TransAm in credit card mode in the summer of 2002. What you interpret the AR to be depends a lot on what your intentions and riding are. Any time you start to ride places, distances or terrain differently your outlook will change how you view different bikes.
I didn't need much baggage for the TransAm but the daily mileage (including through Kansas) took the XO well out of its "do-it-all" element and my RB-1 stock geometry "close enough" fit was OK for sporty rides less than 4-5 hours, not more than that. I was anticipating 6-10 hours riding each day. With my XO and my RB-1 disqualified, I talked to Grant about options. My long for my height legs don't fit stock seat tube/ top tube production geometries well. He was cool about the Riv Road for my needs and positioned the AR as being much refined from but still towards my XO's envelope and brought up the in-stock Atlantis as a tour load bike. He agreed that it would be a good solution but after the cross country ride I would have a bike of a little heavier of tubing than my regular riding made necessary and he mentioned a second production model, the Rambouillet. Both of these production models fell between my XO and RB, as well as RBW's AR and Road models. When the Audax-inspired Rambouillet arrived it and the Atlantis covered a wide range of cycling. Grant advised saddlebag loading and a Carradice Nelson Longflap as about as big as you would want to carry on the Rambouillet, the Atlantis obviously more capable of burden. It was intended for long rides with light provisioning, frame fixtures telling the story; three bottle cages, single (fender) eyelets on front and rear dropouts, no rack eyelets on the fork, a pair of inboard threaded rack mounts on the seat stays. This lead to some odd combination fender/rear rack long leg installations and discussions about P-clamp short leg rear racks. It came with 33.3mm tires which fit under fenders, without them tires (advertised as) 38mm would fit I mounted fenders and used a Bagman saddle support for the Nelson Longflap and headed west across the country. At times I was carried more than advised and handling suffered a bit but overall it was so great of a ride with that loading that I rode it for twenty years and in some different circumstances before I had enough observations of shortcomings I incorporated specifically in a custom that accurately addressed them, namely more tire, more balanced distribution of F-R weight of loaded bike+rider, and access to bag while riding. In April of 2012 a group of RBW owners met in Cumberland, MD to ride the GAP. Warm sunny weather that Friday but a N'orEaster was threatening the coast, many possible weather permutations and overnighting in Confluence, PA motivated me to carry more on the Rambouillet so I added a small rando-style front bag supported by a TA front rack with P-clamps. The front load enhanced the bike's inherent wheel flop, a product of HTA + offset and overweighting of the steering. Folks can do any outfitting they want to any bike and suffer what doesn't work too well if utility (or fashion) outweighs the intrinsic goodness of a bike's basic handling. You can start with any old $100 used bike from Marketplace, Craigslist or the 'Bay if utter utility outweighs handling. When imagining the grail, idealization of its perfection glorifies it and motivates its quest but that leads to disappointment when the realized thing doesn't live up to its objectification. You have to begin with parameters to avoid rationalizations once you have it in hand. I built a mountain bike that way and in the time it took me to collect, save and toil to build it, suspension evolution rendered its hardtail frame second tier on the trail, no matter how much effort and skill were applied. OEM box bikes were better on the trail in the hands of riders much more novice than me. It almost fully funded my Rambouillet when I sold it. Andy Cheatham Pittsburgh On Thursday, March 17, 2022 at 9:50:18 AM UTC-4 Sean Steinle wrote: > I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I honestly can't find > much about the All Rounder, in the way of ride reports, reviews, etc. It > seems to be a Holy Grail bike for several, and I'm curious, is it simply > the fact that they're rare and hard to find now, or is there truly > something special about it? > > I remember Grant talking about the old Bridgestones in an article I came > across, and his sentiment was essentially 'They're fine bikes, but they > don't stack up against Rivs'. At least part of his reasoning was that he'd > continued to refine with Rivendell, and the improvements were drastic > enough that he felt the Rivs were in a different league. This makes me > wonder if Grant would have a similar feeling about the All Rounder. I'd > love to hear from those who own/have owned one. What's the verdict, is it > truly one of the best Rivs out there? Worth the price of admission if one > is lucky enough to find one in their size? > > Thanks for humoring me :) > Sean in Kansas > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/8a40922f-a7c1-41fa-b59e-c834ad84242en%40googlegroups.com.
