Howdy folks. Tim's recollection is very close but I have a couple additions/corrections. The main match guy was Tim Isaac. I believe he started out building under his own name, then worked for Trek in some capacity before starting match. Joe Starck worked for Trek for years before going to Masi and then doing Rivendells. The third party involved in the original Herons, and the brand owner, was Ted Durant. He also did the Willow chainrings that RBW used to sell: http://ronacomp.com/index.html.
HTH, Doug On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote: > > This has been only part of the story. When Rivendell opened up, they > had an agreement with Waterford to build their frames. Initially the > frames were not customs, they were made in a range of sizes. > Rivendell had a guy named Gary Boulanger who worked at Waterford > doing frame prep, packing, etc. to handle the Riv frames. The custom > thing slowly crept in, Grant's ideas kept developing, sales > increased, etc. and eventually Rivendell and Waterford parted ways > amicably. > > (IIRC the Heron line was developed before that happened and were > still built by Waterford for a while after the Riv frames were no > longer made there. Heron was a three-way joint venture between Riv, > Waterford and another guy whose name I have forgotten. There were > too many people for this to be profitable, though, and Riv pulled > out. Eventually the Heron product line was sold to Todd at Tullio's > Cyclery in Illinois; Todd got out of the bike business a year or two > back.) > > Rivendell hired Joe Starck to build frames; he had been a builder for > Masi and other places (maybe Waterford, too). I don't remember if > painting was subbed out to Joe Bell right away, since Joe Starck > didn't paint AFAIK. As the waiting list expanded, part of the > Rivendell line (All-Rounders and maybe some other frames) were subbed > out to Match Cycles, which was owned by Tim Match. Curt Goodrich > worked for Match and built quite a few of the frames made there. > When Match went away, Curt moved back to Minneapolis came on board > with Rivendell as their second frame builder. For a period of time, > both Curt and Joe built Rivendells. Joe stopped, Curt went on. The > waiting list grew and Curt also developed his own frame business. > Oddly enough I can't remember who's been building customs since Curt > stopped, I guess I haven't been paying enough attention. > > Grant has periodically looked for ways to produce lower-cost frames > than the full customs. Those have their own histories. In terms of > geometry, I think that few people need a custom frame. Human > proportions tend to vary pretty consistently, and most of the > variations can be easily accommodated with the various adjustments > that are possible. It's the details- braze-ons, brake reach, tire > clearance, etc.- that really determine the utility of a frame for > specific needs. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
