Happy New Year everybody!
As we tear yet another square off of the Toilet Paper Roll Of Life, we should take a moment to reflect on its purity and cleanliness before we begin the inevitable process of soiling and flushing. For example, have you looked deep within yourself and found your spirit animal?
I certainly have, and after consuming an ayahuasca-infused kombucha I bought from Whole Foods, I recently learned that my own spirit animal is a horseshoe crab:
Like this (barely) living helmet, I’m a boring and slow-witted creature who refuses to evolve in any way, and while most of the cycling world ignores me as a result, at least I’m still here.
In addition to having a spirt animal, I believe that each of us has a spirit bicycle:
[Amazing that they spelled “Time Trial” wrong but spelled “Recumbent” correctly.]
My own spirit bike is a road bike. I ride all sorts bikes in all sorts of ways, but there is a certain simple elegance to the road bike, and ultimately it is the mode to which I default. When I was a much younger cyclist, a road bike was all I had, and indeed it was all I needed. Today I’m fortunate enough to have numerous road bikes at my disposal, and while I know I lack the resolve to ride only one bike (I know because I tried and failed), I nevertheless grow wistful when I recall those austere times.
Therefore, I find myself pursuing the Road Bike Ideal in a manner that is both Proustian and quixotic. Something with the versatility and tire clearance of the Milwaukee…
The roomy fit and decadent construction of the LeMond…
And of course the timeless beauty of a classic:
Something like…oh, I dunno…THIS?!?
The lugged Roadini frame arrived late in the day on December 30th, 2024, and as thousands gathered in Times Square on New Year’s Eve the next day to watch the ball drop, the real excitement was uptown over 200 blocks away where I was assembling this baby in anticipation of its inaugural ride on New Year’s Day.
It’s hard even to know where to begin, so profound is my satisfaction and delight with this velocipede, but I suppose I might as well start with the obvious:
Clearance for 43mm tires with room to spare, that is:
These are the tires that came on the Roaduno. I was going to use something more road-ish, but since I had these handy I figured I might as well start off by taking full advantage of those long-reach salad tongs:
As amply shod as it is you can still just about fit a pinky between tire and chainstay, though do no attempt to do so while the bike is in motion:
Speaking of the bike’s crotch, you may notice something–or the absence of something:
That’s right, unlike other Rivendells, the lugged Roadini does not have a kickstand plate. I imagine they had to slip Grant Petersen a mickey like B.A. Baracus in “The A-Team” in order to get away with this, but the omission will no doubt please the purists, and as much as I’ve come to love the kickstand myself (I use them on my Homer, my Platypus, and my Jones) I do think leaving it off was the right decision for this particular bicycle. It’s a road bike after all, so you might as well lean into it by…uh, having to look for something to lean it on when you’re not riding it.
And I am leaning into the roadiness. In fact, when planning which parts to use for the bike, I even considered deviating from Rivendell orthodoxy by using STI levers. Ultimately though I just couldn’t bring myself to do it:
See, I had this Rapid Rise XTR rear derailleur I’d swiped from the Softride, and the combination of a Rapid Rise derailleur and a Silver shifter is just too good, which I know because that’s what I’ve been using on my Homer:
Also, with friction you don’t have to worry about how many cogs your cassette has, and once you get used to switching wheels across bikes with impunity it’s kind of hard to go back.
As for the front, I used the Silver3 crank I’d taken off the Roaduno, and I triple-ized it with a parts bin front derailleur and a pair of 50/34 rings I’d bought for another crank but hadn’t used yet:
So yes, apart from the 50-tooth ring, which is gargantuan by Rivendellian standards, the drivetrain is very much what they prescribe–though I did still strike a blow in the name of Fredness by using clipless pedals, and a non-Brooks saddle, and at this rate it might as well be a Cervélo. Plus, I’m even riding it in stretchy clothes, as opposed to following Rivendell’s sartorial guidelines, which state that when astride a bicycle you should look like you’re dressed to either paint a house or play a folk music set at Café Wha in Greenwich Village in 1961.
By the way, not only did I come close to using STI levers, but back in early December I received the following email from a PR person:
I immediately requested a Campagnolo group with the intention of installing it on the Roadini, but the PR person never replied, most likely because they didn’t realize I was still on their distribution list from back when I was still relevant and my response reminded them to finally remove it.
Oh well, my low-normal friction drivetrain is a thousand times classier than Campy’s ugly-ass stuff, anyway. I mean putting this…
…on this?
Talk about pearls before swine!
It really is a beautiful frame, too:
As the owner of multiple Rivendae I should be used to it by now, but when I took the frame out of the box I couldn’t stop staring at it, and now that it’s together I’m still staring at it:
The lugs and the paint and the decals are the obvious stuff, but there’s also lots of little functional details, like the shaping and crimping of the chainstays for chainring, cog, tire, and heel clearance–the sorts of things you find when the people who built a frame put a lot of thought into it. Even factoring in my mechanical ineptitude the bike went together very easily, and it felt right as soon as I got on it:
So far the year’s off to a very good start.